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WOMEN  IN  THE  FACTORY 


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WOMEN     IN     THE 
FACTORY 

AN    ADMINISTRATIVE   ADVENTURE, 

1893    TO     1921 

BY    ADELAIDE    MARY    ANDERSON 

D.B.E.,  MA. 

FORMERLY    HIS   MAJESTY'S    PRINCIPAL   LADY   INSPECTOR   OF    FACTORIES, 
HOME   OFFICE 

FOREWORD  BY  THE 

RIGHT    HON.    THE    VISCOUNT    CAVE,    G.C.M.G. 

LORD    OF    APPEAL;    FORMERLY   HIS   MAJESTY'S    PRINCIPAL   SECRETARY  OF 
STATF.    FOR   THE    HOME    DEPARTMENT 


"  Thou,  O  God,  dost  sell  us  all  good  things  at  the  price  of  labour." 

Leonardo  da  Vinci. 


NEW  YORK 
E.    P.    DUTTON    AND    COMPANY 

1922 


ro4 


PRINTED  IN    GREAT   BRITAIN   BT 
BILLING   AND  BOSS,   LTD  ,   GUILDFORD  AND  E8HER 


DEDICATED    TO 

ALL  WOMEN  WORKERS 
OF  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND 


7 


FOREWORD 


This  book  tells  the  story  of  the  Woman  Inspectorate 

of  Factories  and  Workshops  from  its  beginning  in 

1893,  when  the  first  Women  Inspectors  (Miss  May 

Abraham  and  Miss  Mary  Paterson)  made  their  first 

inspection,  until  the  year  1921,  when  thirty  Women 

*  Inspectors    saw    the    fruits    of    the    work    of  their 

£  branch,  not  only  in  greatly  developed  protection 

*  C  for  the  woman  worker,  but  also  in  her  own  increased 

capacity  to  help  herself. 

It  was  a  story  worth  the  telling,  for  it  is  a  chronicle 

of  a  steady  and  dogged  campaign,  of  few  defeats 

)y    and  many  victories.     The  adversaries  to  be  met  were 

all  the  ills   which  threaten  the  "factory  girl" — 

poisoning    by    lead    or    phosphorus    or    arsenic    or 

i  mercury,   insanitary  or    unventilated   rooms,  acci- 

i   dents  from    unsafe    machinery,    phthisis,   anthrax, 

i   overstrain,  truck  and  sweating,  and  more  besides. 

H    Readers  who  like  a  "  thrill  "  will  perhaps  begin  with 

the  chapters  on  "  Dangerous  Trades  "  and  on  the 

War;   and  if  their  imagination  serves  them,  they 

may  read  between  the  lines  of  those  brief  records 

stories  of  suffering,  of  endurance,  and  of   rescue, 

which  will  set  them  wondering  why  our  predecessors 

so  long  grudged   to   the  woman  worker   the  help 

which  only  a  woman  can  give. 


Vll 


viii  FOREWORD 

But  the  whole  book,  with  its  documented  record 
of  steady  grinding  effort  and  hard-won  success,  is 
well  worth  reading. 

Dame  Adelaide  Anderson  went  through  it  all,  and 
lor  twenty-four  out  of  the  twenty-eight  years  with 
which  the  volume  is  concerned  filled  the  responsible 
position  of  Chief  Woman  Inspector  with  untiring 
devotion  and  conspicuous  success.  It  was  plainly 
"up  to  "  her  to  write  the  history  of  the  struggle; 
and  all  will  like  to  read  it  who  honour  our  working 
women  for  their  work  and  value  their  welfare. 

(Signed     CAVE. 
Richmond, 

Marcli  30,  1922. 


AUTHORS  PREFACE 

The  writing  of  the  following  story  of  what  Women 
Inspectors  did  for  women  and  girl  workers  under 
the  Factory  Acts  and  Truck  Acts  was  undertaken 
in  response  to  the  wish  of  friends  and  colleagues 
that  it  should  be  told,  while  memory  was  fresh, 
by  one  who  had  seen  the  largest  part  of  the 
conditions  and  immediate  effects  of  the  work — a 
work  carried  on  under  aims  and  organisation  that 
are  now  undergoing  change. 

The  aims  and  the  starting-point  of  the  past 
organisation  are  shown  in  the  Introduction,  and  the 
outcome,  down  to  1921,  is  unfolded  in  the  following 
chapters. 

The  material  available  in  official  reports  for  those 
who  wish  to  study  the  facts  more  closely  is  so  full 
of  incident  that,  with  the  best  will  to  be  brief,  it 
has  been  difficult  to  tell  the  tale  shortly.  Keeping 
entirely  to  published  official  records  the  whole 
could  be  told  over  again  with  fresh  illustrations. 
And  yet  much  that  was  significant  and  enlightening 
can  only  be  seen  in  innumerable  notices  in  the  daily 
and  weekly  press  and  monthly  reviews  of  the 
period;  a  fairly  full  collection  of  these  exists,  but 
they   could  only   be  quoted  occasionally  in  these 


x  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

pages.  Their  correspondence  in  general  tendency 
with  the  outlook  shown  in  Parliamentary  Debates — 
of  which  an  account  is  given  in  Chapter  VI. — is 
noteworthy. 

Next  to  the  breadth  of  the  field  of  action  of  the 
Women  Inspectorate,  and  the  variety  of  their  con- 
tacts with  local  administration  and  the  courts,  as 
well  as  with  industry,  the  smallness  of  their  numbers 
from  1893  to  1914  strikes  the  mind.  The  strength 
of  the  impulse  that  sustained  and  carried  them 
through  their  years  of  labour  may  be  traced  to 
conditions  summed  up  in  words  spoken  to  one  of 
them  by  a  woman  toiling  at  a  heavy  task,  "Is  it 
right  that  I  should  have  to  do  this  work  and  only 
have  eight  shillings  a  week  for  it  ?" 

There  was  a  dominating  impulse  towards  relieving 
the  hardships  and  sufferings  of  working  women  that 
drew  all  the  women  who  entered  the  Factory  Depart- 
ment into  a  real  unity  of  endeavour — whatever  their 
social  or  political  outlook  before  entering. 

It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  they  have  lent  me 
indispensable  help  in  the  completing  of  this  little 
book.  I  wish  gratefully  to  acknowledge  the  time 
and  thought  freely  given  to  it  by  those  who  have 
long  worked  with  me.  Miss  Martindale  has  criti- 
cally read  through  all  the  typed  manuscript,  Miss 
Squire  the  chapter  on  Wages  and  the  Truck  Acts. 
Miss  Squire  has  also  most  kindly  revised  the 
Appendix  I.  on  Special  Regulations  for  Dangerous 
Trades,  written   in   1913,  and   brought  the  details 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE  xi 

up  to  the  present  time.  Miss  Escreet  supplied  me 
with  most  helpful  summaries  from  the  mass  of 
material  in  Annual  Reports  on  child  labour,  heavy 
weights,  and  religious  and  charitable  institutions. 
Miss  Maura  Brooke-Gwynne  has  devoted  much  time 
and  skill  to  a  literary  criticism  of  the  text.  Miss 
Paterson  and  Mrs.  Drury  have  kindly  written 
special  contributions,  the  former  on  mothers  and 
child  labour — subjects  of  special  appeal  to  Women 
Inspectors — the  latter  on  a  stirring  day  in  the  life 
of  a  Factory  Inspector.  Finally,  I  wish  to  thank 
Mr.  Gerald  Bellhouse  for  some  figures  in  the  Intro- 
duction, and  Dr.  Legge  for  kindly  reading  through 
the  chapter  on  Dangerous  Trades,  for  his  helpful 
comments,  and  for  the  tabulation  of  reported  cases 
of  industrial  poisoning.  They  are  in  no  way  re- 
sponsible, however,  for  my  facts  or  opinions. 

A.  M.  A. 
University  Women's  Club, 
2,  Audley  Square,  W. 
April  2,   1922. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Introduction:     How     Women     Inspectors 

Came,  and  What  they  Came  to  Do         -         1 

II.  The  Women  Workers  and  their  Appeal  ;  Ex- 
cessive Hours,  Insanitation,  and  Other 
Uncivilised  Conditions      -  -  -       22 


III.  Women's  Wages  and  the  Truck  Acts;  the 
Pieceworker  and  her  Pay 

IV.  Dangerous   and   Injurious   Trades;   Acci 

DENTS    AND    SAFETY    - 

V.  Employment   op   Mothers;    Child    Labour 
Charitable  Institutions     - 

VI.  The   Life    of   the   Inspector   and   its   In 
fluence  on  legislation;  experiences  in 
Courts  .... 


58 

94 

149 

190 


VII.  The  War  and  Women  "  Substitutes  ";  New 
Light  on  Hours,  Labour-Saving,  Fatigue, 
Food,  and  Efficiency         -  -  -     224 

VIII.  Development  of  Factory  Welfare  and  its 
Recognition  by  Parliament;  Works'  Com- 
mittees and  Welfare  Management  -     250 

Appendix  I.  Special  Regulations  for  Dangerous 

Trades  .....     287 

Appendix    II.    Reported    Cases    of    Industrial 

Poisoning  and  Anthrax    -  -  -     306 

Index  -  -  -  -  -  -     308 


WOMEN    IN  THE   FACTORY 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION :  HOW  WOMEN  INSPECTORS  CAME,  AND 
WHAT   THEY    CAME   TO   DO 

This  book  aims  at  giving  some  account  of  an  enter- 
prise that  is  felt  by  the  Women  Officers  who  lived 
through  it  to  have  been  a  great  experience  and  a 
great  adventure  in  the  service  of  the  State  and  Nation 
— an  account  that  must  be  somewhat  less  and  }-et 
more  than  a  chronicle. 

It  is  hoped,  with  the  aid  of  outstanding  facts 
and  features  recorded  in  many  Blue-books  and 
other  documents  issued  during  the  time,  to  give  a 
picture  of  the  undertakings  and  experiences  of  these 
women,  both  at  the  outset  and  through  the  experi- 
mental development  of  their  administration  of  Acts 
and  regulations  for  women  in  industry,  and  to  trace 
changes  that  have  followed  in  conditions  of  factory 
life  in  a  period  of  little  over  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Personal^  and  the  idealising  powers  of  youth 
(our  average  age  at  the  beginning  was  twenty- 
seven  years),  embarking  on  a  calling  that  involved 
conduct  of  legal  proceedings  and  much  other 
technical  knowledge  of  an  entirely  novel  kind  for 
women  of  that  day,  counted  for  much.  We  had 
also  liberal,  kindly  direction  and  encouragements 


2  INTRODUCTION 

behind  our  efforts  from  the  higher  authorities 
responsible  for  sanctioning  and  carrying  out  the 
decision  to  appoint  us.  Yet  the  main  impetus  came 
from  without,  in  the  needs  of  the  women  workers 
who  had  persistently  called — from  1878  onwards — 
for  the  personal  aid  and  understanding  of  "  Women 
Inspectors,"  armed  with  authority  and  powers  to 
enquire  into  and  enforce  remedies  for  wrong  con- 
ditions, or  to  persuade  sympathetic  employers  to 
provide  amenities  that  the  law  could  not  enforce. 

Much  that  seemed  novel  then  has,  through  the 
publicity  of  our  work  and  the  spontaneous  lively 
interest  taken  in  Parliament  and  elsewhere  in  our 
published  reports,  become  part  of  the  natural  order 
of  things.  Yet  in  those  days  the  first  appearance 
of  a  Woman  Inspector  in  her  proper  field  of  work, 
whether  inside  a  factory  or  workshop*  or  on  the 
solicitors'  bench  in  the  police  courts,  was  liable 
to  cause  a  sensation  of  surprise,  sometimes  very 
favourable  to  the  new-comer. 

"  Are  you  the  lady  inspector  ?  Why,  I  expected 
to  see  a  woman  six  feet  high  and  a  perfect  virago;" 
or,  "Girls,  it  is  a  lady  this  time,  come  and  tell  her 
everything  she  wants  to  know;"  or  (in  Ireland), 
"We  had  a  gentleman  inspector  here  last  month, 
and  he  said  we  must  take  dinner  at  the  same  hour 
every  day:  now  a  lady  like  you  will  know  that  is 
impossible!"  In  police  courts  it  was  not  unknown 
for  waiting  solicitors  to  enter  with  keen  interest 
into  the  merits  of  our  cases  and  even  try  to  offer 
professional  hints  in  support  of  our  amateur  efforts. 
Yet  the  following  is  a  typical  press  comment  of 
*  See  Note,  p.  21. 


ENTRY  OF  THE  WOMAN  INSPECTOR       3 

early   years:    "A   small   sensation   was   caused    in 

K Police  Court  when  for  the  first  time  a  lady 

advocate  appeared.  .  .  .  She  made  her  statement 
with  as  much  clearness  and  ease  as  any  more 
accustomed  advocate,  and  as  the  facts  and  laws  were 
alike  indisputable,  conviction  necessarily  followed." 
When  this  story  begins,  in  great  industrial  com- 
munities of  Europe,  and  pre-eminently  in  Great 
Britain,  women's  labour  in  industry  had  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years  fundamentally  depended, 
without  control  by  women,  on  such  organisation  as 
was  furnished  by  capitalist  and  middlemen  em- 
ployers, in  a  factory  system  that  had  been  com- 
pletely severed  from  domestic  life.  Trade  union 
organisation  for  women  was  generally  a  small, 
young,  and  fragile  plant  where  it  existed  at  all. 
In  textile  factories  for  upwards  of  fifty  years  Factory 
Inspectors  had  applied  certain  outstanding  statu- 
tory limits  and  requirements  in  matters  of  hours  of 
labour,  elementary  sanitation,  and  safety;  and  for 
a  much  shorter  time  in  many  non-textile  factories. 
Glamour  had  been  lent  to  these  questions  of  regula- 
tion by  movements  for  reform  led  by  such  out- 
standing personalities  as  Robert  Owen,  Shaftes- 
bury, Peel,  Oastler,  Sadler.  The  fact  remained, 
however,  as  official  witnesses  assured  the  Royal 
Commission  on  Labour  in  1891-92,  that  women 
workers  themselves  tendered  practically  none  of 
the  complaints  that  the  Inspectors  were  there  to 
remedy  and  to  which  they  looked  for  clues  in 
exercising  their  protective  functions.* 

*  Minutes  of  Evidence,  Group  C,  Vol.  I.     Questions  4638 
and  6830. 

2 


/ 


4  INTRODUCTION 

Apart  from  the  few  industries  where  women  had 
in  some  degree  carried  their  traditional  skill  over 
from  the  domestic  system  of  industry  into  certain 
factory  processes — I  have  to  write  in  few  words 
of  a  many-sided,  unevenly-moving  change — the 
entry  and  ever-extending  rule  of  the  power-engine 
had  brought  "  lower  grade  work  and  diminished 
industrial  self-respect  "*  for  women  workers  in  a 
wide  field.  The  loss  also  of  leadership  and  super- 
vision by  fellow-women  of  better  education  in  the 
"  making  of  things  "  (such  as  soap,  candles,  and 
the  many  other  articles  formerly  made  at  home) 
that  obtained  under  the  domestic  system — that  is, 
by  women  more  habituated  than  workers  to  exer- 
cise of  direction — brought  a  new  social  cleavage 
between  them  and  working  women.  This  meant 
an  incalculable  loss  to  both  classes  of  women.  Yet 
it  meant  still  more  for  the  whole  community — the 
elimination,  for  a  dark  period,  of  the  guiding 
ideas  of  women  in  regard  to  conditions  essential 
for  a  good  industrial  life  of  both  women  and 
men. 

Thus,  the  factory  system  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  "  unsuited  as  we  now  know  it  to  have 
been  to  men,  was  far  more  unsuited  to  women. "f 
For  the  worker  it  emptied  more  than  half  the 
meaning  from  the  ancient  symbol  of  a  social  order 
when  master  meant  master  of  craft,  "  As  the  eyes  of 
servants  look  unto  the  hands  of  their  masters  and 
the  eyes  of  a  maiden  unto  the  hand  of  her  mistress.' 

;      *   Report  of  Womon's  Employment  Committeo,  Ministry 
'  of  Reconstruction,  1919,  Cd.  9239,  p.  60. 
f  Ibid. 


TYRANNY  OF  THE  MACHINE  5 

It  wholly  removed  into  the  realms  of  mythology 
classic  pictures  of  the  days  when  women's  indus- 
tries were  entirely  home  industries — of  Nausicaa 
and  her  maiden  laundresses  on  the  seashore  of 
Corcyra,  or  of  Penelope  weaving  in  the  days  when 
"  Pallas  taught  the  texture  of  the  loom." 

While  mechanical  power  mainly  ruled,  instead  of 
serving,  in  the  factory,  the  intervention  of  State 
regulation  merely  prevented  the  greatest  abuses. 
Even  constructive  and  efficient  application  of 
scientific  standards  to  human  conditions  of  manual 
work  was  almost  unthought  of,  and  the  withdrawal 
of  the  poet  from  the  arena  of  industry  proclaimed 
the  essential  barbarity  of  its  character. 

And  yet  the  official  life  that  was  lived  by  the 
Women  Inspectors  in  those  early  days  of  infinite 
surprises  and  appeals  was  a  most  lovable  and 
enthralling  one,  of  great  movement  and  happiness. 
We  escaped  all  fear  of  "  venturing  the  hand  into 
the  spinning  cog-wheels  of  the  huge,  implacable 
machine."  How  much  we  owed  to  the  fact  that — 
in  a  wonderful  ignorance  of  ordinary  official  method 
and  tradition — we  were  sent  out  into  a  wide  world 
to  find  our  tasks;  sent  with  powers  that  could  and 
did  effect  changes,  having  eyes  and  hearts  ready 
and  anxious  to  read  the  meaning  of  the  system 
under  which  a  million  and  a  half  of  our  fellow-  . 
country  women  made  the  things  needed  to  clothe  j 
and  feed  the  body  and  to  furnish  and  equip  the  / 
home  !  Understanding  of  the  basis  from  which 
we  set  out  can  hardly  be  attained  without  a  brief 
survey  of  the  stages  in  the  movement  that  led  to 
our  appointment. 


6  INTRODUCTION 

On  February  19,  1891,  Miss  Emily  Faithful,  after 
an  interview  with  the  Home  Secretary,  Lord  Aber- 
dare,  about  the  working  of  the  Factory  Act,  wrote 
a  letter  to  The  Times.  She  said  that  as  long  ago 
as  1872  the  information  she  received  from  various 
sources  strengthened  her  conviction  that  Women 
Inspectors  were  necessary  if  certain  evils  were  to  be 
redressed  and  rules  enforced  in  places  where  women 
were  employed.  The  first  effectual  advocacy  of 
the  appointment  of  women  as  Inspectors  came, 
however,  from  a  leader  in  Women's  Trade  Union 
Organisation,  Mrs.  Emma  Ann  Paterson,  wife  of 
Thomas  Paterson,  "  a  man  of  genius  and  of  remark- 
able range  of  knowledge  belonging  to  the  ranks  of 
labour."  Working  women  owe  to  her,  said  Mr. 
Hodgson  Pratt,  in  an  obituary  notice,  "  an  eternal 
debt  for  her  wise,  practical,  and  incessant  labours. 
She  founded  in  1874  and  conducted  the  Women's 
Protective  and  Provident  League.*  It  was  not 
easy  to  teach  ill-paid,  overworked  women  that  by 
association  among  themselves  they  could  raise  their 
position  .  .  .  and  combine  for  a  demand  of  fan 
treatment  by  employers.  Women  accustomed  to 
think  themselves  too  weak  and  dependent,  too 
'  inferior,'  women  isolated  and  struggling  for  bare 
life  .  .  .  how  could  they  combine  or  do  anything  ? 
Emma  Paterson  has  taught  hundreds  of  them — 
bookbinders,  upholstresses,  dressmakers,  machinists, 
tailoresses,  and  others — that  they  can  do  all  this. 
She  has  given  them  a  new  life,  shown  them  the 
noble  idea  of  mutual  help  and  service  .  .  .  and 
given   them    the   power   of   organisation   and   self- 

*  Afterwards  the  Women's  Trade  Union  League. 


EARLY  EFFORTS  7 

government."*  Mrs.  Paterson  and  another  member 
of  the  league  were  deputed  in  1875  to  represent 
two  of  the  London  Women's  Unions  at  the  Trade 
Union  Congress  in  Glasgow,  and  there  and  in 
various  other  industrial  centres  of  Great  Britain, 
she  extended  her  activities  for  trade  union  organisa- 
tion of  women. 

In  the  year  1878 — the  year  of  the  first  great  con- 
solidation of  numerous  Factory  Acts — at  the  Bristol 
Meeting  of  Trade  Union  Congress  Mrs.  Paterson 
moved  to  include  "  women  "  in  a  resolution  urging 
upon  the  Government  the  appointment  of  "  prac- 
tical working  men  "  as  Inspectors  under  the  Factory 
Act.  This  was  carried,  and  in  1881  she  arranged 
for  a  conference,  at  which  Lord  Shaftesbury  pre- 
sided, to  advocate  the  appointment  of  women  as 
Factory  Inspectors.  She  did  not  live  to  see  the 
reform,  as  she  died  in  December,  1886. 

Although  Trade  Union  Congress  never  failed  to 
pass  the  amendment  in  favour  of  appointment  of 
working  women  as  Inspectors,  brought  up  year  after 
year  by  successors  to  Mrs.  Paterson,  Parliamentary 
Committee  was  either  unfavourable  or  lukewarm. 
"  Oh,  pass  it,"  one  great  person  is  reported  to  have 
said;  "  it  don't  matter,  they  will  never  get  it." 
Fresh  factors  were  needed  to  bring  the  administra- 
tive reform  into  being. 

~~ln  1899,  when  a  doubt  had  been  expressed  by 
Mr.  Matthews,  Home  Secretary,  whether  he  had 
power  to  appoint  a  woman,  and  even  whether  there 
would  be  enough  work  for  her  to  do  if  he  had,  the 

*  From  an  obituary  notice  by  Hodgson  Pratt  in  the 
Women's  Union  Journal,  in  December,  1886. 


8  INTRODUCTION 

Fabian  Society  inserted  a  clause  (eventually  proved 
unnecessary)  in  an  Eight  Hours  Bill,  expressly 
declaring  that  women  were  eligible  for  the  Inspec- 
torate. Year  after  year  the  pressure  grew  stronger 
from  various  sides,  and  was  in  no  way  lessened  by 
the  appointment  between  1881  and  1890  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  "practical  working  men"  as 
Inspectors. 

As  the  agitation  grew,  the  burden  on  women  of 
ever  severer  speeding-up  of  machinery  and  the  so- 
called  "  driving  system  "  in  cotton  mills,  of  exces- 
sively long  hours  and  overtime  in  the  dress  and 
clothing  trades,  of  "  sweated  "  wages  in  various 
low-grade  industries  and  outwork,  and  of  the 
increasingly-felt  evils  of  bad  sanitation,  fines,  and 
deductions  from  uncertain  wages,  all  gave  point 
and  urgency  to  this  claim.  While  wages  for  men 
were  rising,  for  women,  on  the  whole,  they  were 
stationary  or  falling.  Enquiries  into  the  sweating 
system  had  shown  its  worst  features  to  be  low 
wages,  long  hours,  and  insanitary  surroundings. 
In  spite  of  the  long  years  since  Hood  wrote  his 
"  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  these  adverse  conditions  con- 
tinued to  affect  women.  Middle  and  upper  class 
women's  political  organisations  began  to  move 
energetically.  The  Women's  Liberal  Association 
and  Women's  Liberal  Federation  had  this  question, 
annually  on  their  agenda,  discussed,  and  resolutions 
passed  from  1890  onwards. 

As  Miss  I.  O.  Ford  wrote  in  189G:  "  The  idea  that 
it  was  not  right,  that  it  was  unjust  and  sometimes 
even  cruel,  for  women  to  have  no  one  but  men  to 
whom  they  could  appeal  against  any  sort  of  abuse, 


FIRST  APPOINTMENTS  9 

had  been  steadily  growing  in  people's  minds.  It 
was  an  idea  that  appealed  to  everyone,  both  rich 
and  poor."  Miss  Ford  had  already  spoken  re- 
peatedly in  this  sense,  notably  in  1892  at  the  Bristol 
meeting  of  the  National  Council  of  Women  Workers. 
At  last,  between  1891  and  1893,  the  turning-point 
in  the  movement  came,  with  the  appointment  and 
work  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Labour.  Four 
Women  Assistant  Commissioners  were  appointed  at 
an  early  stage  in  the  proceedings.  One,  Miss  May 
Abraham,  Secretary  to  Lady  Dilke  (better  known 
as  Mrs.  H.  J.  Tennant,  C.H.),  became  in  the  spring 
of  1893  one  of  the  two  first  Women  Factory  In- 
spectors under  the  Home  Office,  the  other  being 
Miss  Mary  Paterson,  with  valuable  experience  of 
Labour  questions  in  Scotland.  Another  Assistant 
Commissioner,  Miss  Clara  Qollett,  became  special 
correspondent  for  women's  industrial  conditions 
to  the  Statistical  Department  of  the  Board  of  Trade. J 
The  report  of  the  Women  Assistant  Commissioners', 
the  first  official  women  investigators  of  industrial 
conditions,  received  high  praise  and  conclusively 
supported  the  demand  for  appointment  of  Women 
Inspectors.  One  of  the  two  Secretaries  of  the  Com- 
mission, Mr.  Geoffrey  Drage,  furthered  the  movement 
by  employing  University  women  and  giving  them 
opportunity  and  training  as  clerks  to  the  Commis- 
sion. After  the  appointment  of  Miss  Lucy  Deane 
in  April,  1894,  two  of  his  staff  were  added  to  the 
Inspectorate,  Miss  A.  M.  Anderson  (July,  1894), 
and  Miss  A.  Tracey  (1897),  bringing  additional 
experience  in  precis-writing  and  knowledge  of 
foreign  reports,  especially  of  French,  German,  and 


10  INTRODUCTION 

Austrian  industrial  codes.  Miss  R.  E.  Squire, 
appointed  in  December,  1895,  brought,  like  Miss 
Deane,  fresh  and  good  experience  as  a  Sanitary 
Inspector.  These  first  five  Inspectors  have  all, 
in  time,  passed  to  other  tasks  and  responsibilities. 

The  comparative  survey  of  international  Labour 
questions  in  the  chief  industrial  countries  that  was 
undertaken  by  the  Royal  Commission  on  Labour 
followed  soon  after  the  work  of  the  International 
Conference  on  regulation  of  conditions  of  work  in 
factories  and  mines,  held  in  Berlin  in  March,  1890, 
at  the  invitation  of  the  German  Emperor.  That 
conference  was  followed  in  England  by  the  passing 
of  the  Factory  Act  of  1891.  This  limited  the 
employment  of  women  after  childbirth,  raised  the 

/  age  of  admission  and  employment  of  a  child,  and 
provided  for  regulation  of  dangerous  and  injurious 

[  trades.  It  is  now  of  peculiar  interest  that  that 
"  forerunner  "  of  the  Labour  Convention  under  the 
Peace  Treaty  of  1919  should  be  in  a  manner  linked 
with  the  first  effectual  employment  of  women  as 
Factory  Inspectors. 

At  a  political  meeting  of  the  National  Liberal 
Federation  in  January,  1893,  Mr.  Asquith  spoke  as 
Home  Secretary,  among  other  subjects,  on  Adminis- 
tration of  Factory  Laws,  promising  extension  of  the 
Inspectorate,  and  adding:  "  I  hope  I  may  be  able  at 
the  same  time  to  do  something — it  will  not  be  much 
— to  gratify  the  desires  of  our  lady  friends  for  female 
inspection."  He  did  far  more;  he  gave  them  their 
liberal  starting-point  and  wide  field  of  activity. 
Opportunities  were  maintained  and  extended  by 
Sir  Matthew  White  Ridley  and  a  long  succession 


OFFICIAL  STATUS  11 

of  Home  Secretaries.  Permanent  Under-Secretaries, 
too,  furthered  the  work  in  its  earliest  stages  by 
carefully  planned  instructions ;  Sir  Godfrey  Lushing- 
ton  was  the  first,  and  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  succeeded 
him  in  January,  1895,  and  largely  guided  our  legal 
work  through  nine  eventful  years.  Sir  Mackenzie 
Chalmers  followed  him,  until  he  in  turn  was  suc- 
ceeded, in  1908,  by  Sir  Edward  Troup.  It  was  the 
last  who  gave  evidence  to  the  Royal  Commission 
on  the  Civil  Service  in  1913  that  the  work  of  the 
Women  Inspectors,  expressly  organised  as  it  was 
on  parallel  lines  with  the  men's,  was  comparable 
with  and  as  good  as  theirs. 

The  quality  of  the  earliest  Women  Inspectors 
did  much  to  decide  the  official  status  of  women 
in  the  Inspectorate.  Between  some  of  the  official 
witnesses  to  the  Labour  Commission,  who  urged 
that  the  appointments — admitted  to  be  inevitable — 
should  be  solely  as  subordinate  assistants,  "  never 
to  be  called  on  to  discharge  the  higher  duties  of 
the  office,"  and  outside  claimants,  who  pressed  for 
their  full  appointment  to  all  the  powers  and  duties 
of  an  Inspector,  there  stood  a  middle  party  with 
moderating  views.  From  them,  led  by  Lady  Dilke, 
came  the  advice  that  women  should  enter  as  a 
special  class  of  officers  to  serve  in  trades  in  which 
women  were  employed.  Somewhere  between  the 
extreme  limits  proposed  the  higher  official  decision 
was  made.  It  was  there,  in  women's  trades,  thej 
field  at  that  time  of  women's  greatest  need,  that' 
the  new  Inspectors  found  their  practically  limitlesi 
work.  And  by  the  decision  they  were  saved,  first, 
from    a   hampering   necessity   of   working   entirely 


12  INTRODUCTION 

under  conditions  and  according  to  standards  already 
prescribed  before  they  entered  with  their  new 
instinctive  understanding  of  complaints  made  to 
them  by  working  women.  Secondly,  they  were  saved 
from  losing  themselves  in  an  overpowering  mass  of 
technical  requirements,  such  as  elaborate  fencing 
of  machinery*  primarily  affecting  men,  where — 
presumably — Men  Inspectors  were  sufficient  without 
women's  aid.  At  the  beginning  their  instructions 
allowed  them  to  take  up  any  questions  affecting 
women  and  girls,  including  fencing.  For  a  time, 
and  at  their  own  instance,  they  referred  all  fencing 
to  the  Men  Inspectors,  while  they  turned  almost 
exclusively  to  questions  of  general  hygiene  (cleanli- 
ness, ventilation,  temperature,  sanitary  conveni- 
ences, etc.),  hours,  excessive  overtime,  fines  and 
deductions  from  wages,  payment  in  kind  in  various 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  dangerous  and 
injurious  processes,  industrial  poisoning,  employ- 
ment of  young  workers,  and  of  women  after  child- 
birth; and  to  the  encouragement  of  employers 
making  voluntary  welfare  arrangements  in  the 
factories.  Later,  from  1901  onwards,  they  took 
up  special  questions  of  fencing  affecting  women  in 
laundries  and  clothing  factories,  and  there  they 
succeeded  in  standardising  methods. 

The  Women  Inspectors  were,  in  fact,  free  under 
the  early  official   instructions  to  devote  the  con- 

*  "  Fencing  "  is  a  term  used  but  not  defined  in  the  Factory 
Act,  in  Section  10  of  1901.  Under  this  section,  guards,  auto- 
matic as  woll  as  fixed,  are  required  for  dangerous  machinery. 
Other  dangerous  parts — e.g.,  "  mill  gearing  " — if  not  safe  by 
position  must  be  securely  fenced. 


A  NEW  FIELD  AND  TEAM-WORK        13 

centrated  energy  of  heart  and  mind,  in  enthusiastic 
"  team-work,"  to  enquiry  and  action  on  these  most 
urgent  problems.  Happily  they  entered  just  when 
public  opinion,  as  distinct  from  specialised  know- 
ledge, was  awakening  to  the  immense  extent  of 
inj  ury  and  loss  and  to  the  great  need  for  constructive 
reforms  in  industrial  life.  Their  first  Chief  (under 
the  Home  Secretary,  who  had  initiated  this  addition 
to  the  Inspectorate),  was  Mr.  R.  E.  Sprague  Oram, 
C.B.  During  his  administration  the  important  new 
provisions  of  the  Factory  Act  of  1891  were  applied 
and  the  preparatory  enquiries  for  the  yet  more 
important  Act  of  1895  were  begun.  This  Act 
furnished  new  starting-points  and  made  provision 
for  more  exact  knowledge,  in  requiring  regular 
returns  of  persons  employed  in  a  factory  or  work- 
shop with  particulars  as  to  age  and  sex,  and  notifi- 
cation by  medical  practitioners  and  employers  of 
cases  of  industrial  poisoning,  together  with  other 
provisions  for  regulation  of  dangerous  trades. 
These  were  carried  to  far  greater  developments  under 
our  second  Chief,  Sir  Arthur  Whitelegge,  K.C.B., 
M.D.,  in  what  may  be  considered  the  culminating 
period  of  Factory  Act  administration. 

Before  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Oram  in  1896,  the 
five  Women  Inspectors  were,  in  harmony  with  their 
own  wish,  formally  constituted  a  branch  of  the 
Factory  Department,  under  immediate  superin- 
tendence of  Miss  May  Abraham,  subject  of  course,  as 
all  branches  were,  to  control  by  the  Chief  Inspector. 
Miss  Abraham  retired  from  the  Inspectorate  in 
May,  1897,  a  year  after  marriage,  and  the  branch 
continued   from  that  year  until  August    1,    1921, 


14  INTRODUCTION 

under  direction  of  the  writer  of  this  book.     From 
1896  the  reports  of  the  women  were,  until   1914 

(/  inclusive,  issued  over  the  signature  of  this  head 
of  the  branch,  as  a  separate  section  in  the  Annual 
Rej)ort  of  _thejChief  Inspector,  thus  giving  a**cTear 
history  of  the  progress  of  their  work.  Staff  Com- 
mittees to  enquire  into  and  make  recommendations 
on  organisation  came  and  went  at  intervals  of  a 
few  years,  but  the  only  important  changes  affecting 
organisation  of  the  Women  Inspectors'  work  that 
came  before  1921  were  in  1899  and  in  1908.  In 
1899  came  the  useful  devolution,  never  extended 
beyond  two  districts,  of  special  district  charge  of 
certain  women's  industries  into  the  Women  In- 
spectors' hands.  In  the  later  year  came  the  creating 
of  new  group  centres  in  the  chief  industrial  cities 
(Glasgow,  Manchester,  Birmingham,  etc.),  where 
the  Women  Inspectors,  under  charge  of  a  senior 
woman,  carried  on  their  routine  general  inspection 
and  enquiries  into  complaints  in  factories  employ- 
ing women  and  girls,  but  with  newly  denned  duties, 
investigating  notified  cases  of  industrial  poisoning, 
accidents,  and  other  matters  specially  affecting 
women.  All  this  work,  however,  was  subject  to  the 
central  direction  at  the  Home  Office  through  the 
Principal  Woman  Inspector,  and  was  carried  on  in 
definitely  regulated  co-operation  with  their  col- 
leagues, the  Men  Inspectors  in  charge  of  Districts, 
as  well  as  the  Medical  and  Engineering  Inspectors. 

The  number  of  Women  Inspectors  grew,  from 
five  in  1897,  to  twenty-one  just  before  the  Great 
War  in  1914,  increasing  by  temporary  additions 
during  the  War  to  a  maximum  of  thirty.     From 


ORGANISATION  AND  REORGANISATION     15 

this  point,  further  and  adequate  extension  in 
numbers  of  the  women's  branch  was  admittedly 
impracticable  without  reorganisation  of  a  funda- 
mental character.  To  prevent  cumbrous  dual  in- 
spection of  factories  largely  employing  women  it 
was  necessary  to  have  either  well-defined  sharing  and 
division  of  the  whole  work  of  inspection  as  between 
men  and  women,  with  interchange  of  Inspectors 
as  regards  any  factories  not  employing  men  or 
women  exclusively ;  or  a  fusion  more  or  less  complete 
of  men  and  women  for  all  duties  and  responsibilities. 
This  assumes  that  broadly  they  are  alike  effective, 
whether  for  enforcing  safety  of  men  and  boys  in 
shipbuilding,  docks,  blast  furnaces,  foundries, 
engineering  works,  etc.,  or  for  securing  health  and 
safety  of  women  and  girls  in  fruit-preserving  and 
confectionery  works,  laundries,  corset  factories, 
millinery,  mantle  and  shirt  and  collar  factories, 
textile  factories. 

(Fusion  was  the  line  of  development  chosen  by 
the  Home  Office,  under  a  scheme  that  allowed  in 
1921  for  42  Women  and  195  Men  Inspectors;  this 
Qould  not  then  be  fully  carried  out  as  to  numbers. 

It  is  impossible  to  state  exactly  the  present 
proportionate  number  of  men  and  women  in  factories 
and  workshops  for  purposes  of  comparison  with 
the  earliest  systematic  figures,  which  were  published 
by  the  Factory  Department  in  18.96.  At  that  time 
there  were  in  the  United  Kingdom  144,000  factories' 
and  workshops  in  which  1,403,568  women  and  girls 
and  2,699,917  men  and  boys  were  employed.  These 
figures  had  risen  by  1907  to  1,852,241  women  and 
girls  and  3,274,868  men  and  boys.     When  the  War 


16  INTRODUCTION 

)roke  out  there  were  nearly  2,000,000  women  and 
girls  employed  in  factories  and  workshops.  By  the 
end  of  the  War  there  were  3,000,000  women  and 
girls  industrially  employed,  and  in  1919  the  women 
and  girls  still  numbered  over  2,000,000  in  a  total 
^of  over  6,000,000  male  and  female.  The  rise  and 
fall  of  "  substitution  "  during  the  War  and  of  unem- 
ployment in  1920  to  1921,  makes  more  recent  exact 
comparison  difficult.  At  the  outside  the  ratio  of 
female  to  all  workers  can  hardly  exceed  35  per  cent. 

While  the  reorganisation  of  the  Inspectorate  that 
began  in  August,  1921,  rounds  off  a  well-marked 
epoch  in  Factory  Act  administration,  giving  point 
to  the  choice  of  period  covered  by  this  book,  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  in  industry  itself  there 
remains,  for  the  present,  small  change  in  the  division 
of  occupations  between  men  and  women  workers. 

The  hopes  of  a  substantial  widening  of  women 
workers'  activities,  to  follow  after  the  great  work 
of  their  substitution  for  men  in  factories  during  the 
War,  have  not  been  fulfilled,  and  in  some  processes 
women  have  been  excluded  by  the  unions  with 
increased  stringency  since  the  War.  The  ratio  of 
men  and  women  in  industry  probably  remains 
somewhere  near  that  in  1907.  Thus  the  greater 
numbers  of  men  with  theirimmense  problems  of 
safety  and  accident  prevention  provide  the  largest 
call  on  the  time  of  the  whole  Inspectorate.  And 
Women  Inspectors  are  now  bound  to  take  a  con- 
siderable share  of  this  work. 

A  great  gain  may  be  achieved  by  developing 
fuller  mutual  interchange  of  special  knowledge  and 
special  experience    between   Men  and   Women  In- 


ULTIMATE  TESTS  OF  ORGANISATION    17 

spectors  as  regards  hygiene,  safety,  and  welfare  of 
all  the  workers  at  a  time  when  Inspectors  are 
becoming  less  and  less  corrective,  and  more  and 
more  constructive,  in  their  functions.  It  was  a 
matter  of  common  regret  among  the  earlier  Women 
Inspectors  that  they  could  do  so  little,  even  in- 
directly, to  further  much-needed  reform  in  condi- 
tions of  health  and  welfare  for  men  and  boy  workers. 
"  Let  the  Women  Inspectors  come  into  our  shops," 
said  a  bold  and  advanced  male  trade  union  worker/ 
at  a  meeting,  early  in  the  twentieth  century,  at  whicu 
the  writer  explained  dangerous  trades  regulations; 
"  they  seem  to  be  able  to  frighten  employers  into 
doing  things  !" 

Any  change  of  organisation  can,  however,  in  the 
long  run,  be  weighed  and  judged  only  by  the  result 
in  increased  effectiveness  and  fineness  of  inspection, 
not  by  greater  official  convenience,  nor  by  a  theory 
of  equality  of  men  and  women.  We  have  j^et  to 
learn  whether  in  face  of  the  actualities  of  industrial 
life  complete  fusion  of  the  functions  and  activities 
of  Men  and  Women  Inspectors  can  serve  the  many 
distinct  needs  of  men  and  women  in  factories  and 
workshops  better  than  some  degree  of  specialisation 
and  co-ordination. 

In  order  to  secure  permanent,  equal  eligibility  of 
men  and  women  for  future  appointments  and 
promotions  in  the  department,  some  equivalence 
in  numbers  is  necessary.  A  minority  which  is  no 
more  than  approximately  a  fifth  of  the  whole  has 
small  chance  of  putting  up  as  many  able  candidates 
for  promotion  as  the  larger  majority.  As  a  general 
rule  the  minority  has,  further,  the  extra  handicap 


18  INTRODUCTION 

of  compulsory  retirement  on  marriage.  Thus  some 
approximation  of  the  number  of  Women  Inspectors 
to  at  least  the  relative  proportion  of  women  in 
industry  is  a  necessary  corollary  of  "  fusion  "  of 
the  Inspectorate.  The  value  of  the  special  con- 
tribution brought  by  Women  Factory  Inspectors 
to  the  regulation  of  factory  life  for  women  and 
girls  is  too  well  and  authoritatively  established  to 
be,  as  it  were,  accidentally  lost. 

The    testimony    of    the    Women's    Employment 
Committee  under  the  Ministry  of  Reconstruction, 
in  1919,  as  to  the  great  "  administrative  success  " 
of  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspectors  is  strong.* 
It  can  be  tried  and  tested  by  a  careful  study  of  the 
range  of  subjects  the  Women  Inspectors  covered, 
and  of  the  records  of  their  actions,  in  the  Annual 
/  Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector  issued  by  the  Home 
|     Office   from    1894    to    1914;    by   the   testimony   of 
working  women;  by  the  official  reports  of  Parlia- 
i    mentary  Debates  on  Home  Office  Administration, 
\    and  on  amending  Factory  Acts  embodying  recom- 
mendations which  they  had  been  emboldened  to 
"make.     More    arresting    and   convincing,    however, 
for  the  general  reader  may  be   observations   from 
a  distinguished  onlooker  outside  official  ranks. 

Listen  to  the  voice  of  Canon  Scott  Holland, 
speaking  in  July,  1896,  in  the  Editorial  Notes  of 
the  Commonwealth,  on  the  new  light  that  was 
appearing  in  the  dark  places  of  factory  industry: 

"  What  used  to  be  one  of  the  most  depressing  and 
uninforming  of  Annual  Blue-books  is  now  (issue 
for  1895)  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  valuable. 

*  Report  quoted  Cd.  9239,  p.  61. 


A  TRIBUTE  TO  THE  INSPECTORS        19 

...  I  take  from  my  shelf  the  starved- looking 
report  of  the  '  eighties  '  and  early  '  nineties  '  and 
lay  it  out  by  the  side  of  the  two  stout  volumes  just 
issued,  and  wish  that  the  people  who  are  losing 
heart  ...  all  the  wise  people  who  have  seen  so 
many  things  in  their  time  that  they  can  never 
believe  in  an  upright  and  vigilant  officialdom, 
would  come  and  turn  over  the  leaves  with  me.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  report  of  crusaders;  it  brims  with  sugges- 
tions of  reform.  .  .  .  You  feel  that  to  be  a  Factory 
Inspector  is  to  be  something  splendid  and  stirring 
and  effective;  that  these  men  and  women  are  the 
missionaries  of  order  and  health,  and  that  they 
bring  hope  with  them  where  they  go. 

"  The  state  of  things  is  in  many  ways  disgrace- 
fully bad,  but  it  is  something  to  see  the  State  itself 
exposing  the  evil  and  casting  about  for  a  cure. 
Since  1892  the  staff  has  been  increased  by  50  per 
cent.  .  .  . 

"  The  joint  report  (of  the  Women  Inspectors)  is 
a  record  of  tremendous  work,  accomplished  with 
courage  and  judgment. 

"  The  work  of  levelling  up  as  to  safety  and  health 
goes  on  apace.  ...  It  is  cheering  to  see  that  many 
manufacturers  are  becoming  alive  to  the  effects  of 
industry  on  health.  .  .  . 

"  The  report  has  a  special  interest  on  account  of 
its  being  the  valedictory  message  of  Mr.  Sprague 
Oram,  H.M.  Chief  Inspector,  who  retires  after  half 
a  century  of  public  service.  ...  It  is  no  secret 
that  much  of  the  go-ahead  work  of  the  last  few 
years  has  been  due  to  his  enthusiasm,  initiative, 
and  devotion.  .  .  .  He  hands  over  his  duties  to 
Dr.  Whitelegge,  a  distinguished  authority  on  public 
health,  who  should  be  a  tower  of  strength  ...  in 
the  work  of  making  every  factory  and  workshop 
fit  for  human  beings  to  work  in." 


20  INTRODUCTION 

The  entering  of  a  breath  of  new  life,  obvious  as 
it  becomes  in  the  Annual  Reports  of  1895,  1896,  and 
onwards,  is  not,  and  must  not  be,  attributed  dis- 
proportionately to  the  entry  and  work  of  the  small 
band  of  Women  Inspectors — for  that  itself  sprang 
from  a  wider  movement  affecting  the  whole  depart- 
ment. None  the  less,  it  was  a  powerful  new  factor 
that  gained  in  effectiveness  as  time  went  on.  And 
it  preceded  in  time  even  the  highly  significant  and 
essential  addition  of  Medical  Inspectors  considered 
in  Chapter  IV.  If  we  do  not  speak  here  in  detail 
of  the  fine  work  done  by  Men  Inspectors,  it  is 
because  that  lies  outside  the  scope  of  this  brief 
survey.  They  have  had  great  pioneering  days  in 
the  early  battles  for  Factory  Act  regulation.  Their 
service  when  Women  Inspectors  entered  with  a 
new  task  before  them  had  yet  to  be  fully  developed 
in  the  light  of  scientific  knowledge  and  method. 

If  these  pages  in  any  true  measure  picture,  for 
twentieth-century  workers  and  employers,  certain 
conditions  in  industry  during  the  twenty-eight  years 
under  review;  if  they  can  put  any  clues  into  the 
hands  of  legislators  and  administrators  regarding 
women's  share  and  needs  in  industry,  they  will 
fulfil  their  aim.  They  are  designed  to  serve  as  a 
finger-post  to  the  original  documents.  By  imagina- 
tive study  of  them  alone  can  the  growth  and  change 
of  this  profoundly  interesting  period  be  seen. 
During  its  course,  after  about  ninety  years  of  tenta- 
tive, experimental  Factory  Acts,  something  like 
civilisation  began  to  dawn  inside  industry.  Out  of 
it  there  emerges,  from  about  the  year  1918,  glimpses 
of  the  possibility  of  a  new  order,  when — instead  of 


A  NEW  ERA  IN  INSPECTION  21 

intervention  by  the  State  between  diverging  in- 
terests of  workers  and  employers — regulation  can 
partly  spring  from  within  industry  itself,  by  Joint 
Councils  and  Works'  Committees,  as  well  as  by  repre- 
sentative Trade  Boards.  Factory  Inspectors  may 
then  become  mainly  technical  and  expert  advisers 
and  counsellors  in  factories  that  are  developing  a 
life  of  co-operation  between  manual  workers  and 
employers  as  co-organisers  of  production. 

Note. — The  terms  "  factory  "  and  "  workshop  "  are 
defined  in  Section  149  of  the  Factory  and  Workshop  Act, 
1901. 

Broadly  they  apply  to  any  workplace  where  the  manu- 
facture of  any  article  is  carried  on  by  way  of  trade  or  for 
purpose  of  gain  and  any  person  is  working  under  a  contract 
of  employment.  If  mechanical  power  is  used  in  aid  of  the 
process,  the  place  is  a  factory ;  if  not,  as  a  rule  it  is  a  workshop ; 
but  certain  workplaces — e.g.,  tobacco  works  and  potteries — 
are  factories,  even  if  there  be  no  power  applied. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  WOMEN  WORKERS  AND  THEIR  APPEAL ',  EXCESSIVE 
HOURS,  INSANITATION,  AND  OTHER  UNCIVILISED 
CONDITIONS 

"  '  It's  gey  handy  to  have  the  likes  o'  you,'  a  Scottish 
mother  said  when  consulting  Miss  Vines  on  the  effects  of 
employment  on  her  daughter's  health."* 

The  outstanding  characteristics  of  the  working 
women  of  our  country  that  immediately  appealed 
to  the  Women  Factory  Inspectors  were  their  courage 
and  their  endurance,  their  ready  trustfulness,  and 
their  loyalty.  Instances  of  timidity,  or  fear  of 
losing  employment — hard  to  get  and  easily  lost — 
by  evidence  necessary  to  establish  infringements 
of  the  law,  these  did  but  throw  up,  in  high  relief, 
the  dominating  traits  of  the  majority.  The  excep- 
tions were  only  natural  in  the  days  of  severe  com- 
petition for  poorly  paid  work,  especially  before  the 
organisation  in  1898  of  the  Industrial  Law  Indem- 
nity Fundf  for  aiding  workers  dismissed  by  em 
ployers  after  giving  evidence  that  led  to  proof  of 
breaches  of  industrial  laws. 

A  few  months  after  my  appointment  to  the 
Factory  Department  I  went  into  a  factory  just  as  a 
girl  of  fourteen  years  had  been  carried  to  the  local 
infirmary   suffering  from   a  compound  fracture  of 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chiof  Inspector,  1912,  p.  113. 
t  Under  the  chairmanship  of  Mrs.  H.  J.  Tennant. 
22 


FORTITUDE  OF  WORKERS  23 

her  leg  and  other  injuries.  "  She  had  been  at  work 
at  a  card*  for  several  weeks  and  was  esteemed  as 
a  careful,  clever,  and  good  worker.  In  the  en- 
deavour to  keep  her  card  in  good  order  by  steady 
cleaning,  her  skirt  had  been  caught  in  the  driving 
band  and  the  mischief  was  done.  .  .  .  She  had  kept 
perfectly  clear  and  conscious,  and  had  been  chiefly 
concerned  that  no  one  should  alarm  her  mother, 
who  was  ill  at  home."f  The  managing  foreman 
was  much  moved  as  he  told  me  of  this  Lancashire 
girl's  serenity  and  unselfishness  under  the  sudden 
shock  and  suffering.  Instances  as  strong  and 
stronger  could  be  given  by  any  Inspector  of  the 
way  that  a  high  and  fine  spirit  predominates  when 
accidents  and  casualties  occur  in  a  factory.  Other 
examples  in  1913,  eighteen  years  later,  may  be 
compared  with  that  one.  "Of  a  girl  partially 
scalped,"  Miss  Martindale  says:  'Her  pluck  and 
bravery  were  noteworthy;  in  fact,  the  qualities 
show  themselves  in  a  remarkable  degree  in  working 
girls  when  they  meet  a  severe  physical  shock;" 
of  another,  whose  hand  had  to  be  amputated  after 
vain  attempts  to  save  it,  she  says  that  the  girl 
mastered  her  disappointment,  and  in  two  or  three 
days  after  the  operation  began  to  practise  writing 
with  her  left  hand,  and  in  a  month  had  become 
almost  as  proficient  as  with  the  right.  Or  again, 
Miss  Tracey  says  of  fifteen  cases  of  serious  lead 
poisoning  among  women  employed  in  a  workshop, 
where  they  were  "  heading  "  yarn  (dyed  with  a 
chromate  of  lead   dye),    "I  visited   these  workers 

*  A  carding  engine  in  a  cotton  mill. 

t  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1895,  p.  112. 


24  WOMEN  WORKERS 

at  their  homes  and  found  them  in  different  stages 
of  illness  and  convalescence.  Their  pluck  will 
always  remain  fixed  in  my  mind;  although  many  of 
them  were  unable  to  put  into  words  the  suffering 
they  had  gone  through,  yet  not  one  of  them  but 
was  eagerly  wishing  to  be  well  enough  to  go  back 
to  work."* 

This  is  a  spirit  that  is  one  with  that  we  saw  in 
the  innumerable  "  substitute  "  women  and  munition 
workers  in  the  War.  And  before  that  movement 
had  well  begun,  an  American  employer  in  London 
had  said  in  my  hearing  that  "British  women'g_lakour 
was  the  "  best  in  the  world,"  versatile,  patient,  and 
uncomplaining.  

"•^YV'liat  w75re  the  characteristic  features  in  the 
earlier  days  that  the  Inspectors  saw — drilling  and 
testing  the  women  ?  First,  a  mute  sense  of  in- 
dujstrmljaferiefiity,  outside  the  great  textile  indus- 
tries, though  even  of  them  a  "  mill  girl  "  could 
write:  "Mill  girls  need  a  sensible  and  educated 
woman  to  further  their  cause.  .  .  .  How  many 
of  our  women  are  there  that  have  to  spend  most 
of  their  lives  in  unhealthy,  badly  ventilated  and 
unsanitary  mills,  and  must  go  on  and  tolerate  the 
condition  of  things  silently,  not  daring  to  complain, 
and  even  if  they  have  courage  they  shrink  from 
telling  a  man.  A  Woman  Inspector  would  often 
see  irregularities  without  being  told.  Her  own 
instinct  would  enlighten  her:  I  think  that  is  one 
thing  in  her  favour.  ...  In  cases  where  the  law 
had  no  power  to  enforce  alterations,  frequently  the 
Woman  Inspector   has   by  gentle   arguments    and 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  pp.  70,  89. 


SEVERITY  OF  SYSTEM  25 

reasoning  caused  the  employer  to  see  that  it  was  to 
his  own  advantage  as  well  as  the  workers'  comfort 
to  effectuate  the  improvement."*  Secondly,  an 
absence  in  the  great  majority  of  factories  of  any 

woman in    a    position    of    authority.     Thirdly,    in 

spite  of  protective  laws,  a  working  day  and  week 

in  which   the   standard  hours   worked   by   womejK 

frequently  exceeded  those  for  which  men,  in  certain^ 

great  trades,  had  by  means  of  tradeHnions  secured 

recognition  from  employers.     Fourthly,  a  frequent 

.  la^ik^lsuitab^lB^oTe^^^'tteceTrtrand  Bufficicnirganitary 

^accommodation,  of  cleanliness  of  a  domestic  nature, 

and    of    other    hygienic    requirements,    sometimes 

injuriously  affecting  conduct  and  morals.     Fifthly, 

not  only  lo^_aj^erageand  individual  wages,  but  on 

J  the  part  of  pieceworkers  an  intolerable  uncertainty 

^v  as  to  what  their  rates  really  were ;  and,  for  all,  a 

liability    to    arbitrary    deductions    for    fines    and 

alleged    damages    to    work,    which    often    brought 

earnings  below  subsistence  level. 

These  are  all  evils  that  specially  and  peculiarly 
weighed  upon  women,  in  a  haphazardly  evolved 
factory  system  over  which  they  had  absolutely  no 
control.  They  shared  with  their  fellow-men  other 
frequent,  though  certainly  not  universal,  ills: 
excessive  heat  in  active,  and  cold  in  sedentary, 
occupations;  exposure  to  inadequately  controlled 
dust,  steam,  fumes;  badly  drained  or  damp  floors;  -' 
handling  of  dangerous  or  injurious  materials;  often 
poor  and  sometimes  very  bad  general  ventilation; 
lack  of  washing  conveniences,  and  means  of  pre- 

*   Yorkshire  Factory  Times,  September  11,  1896.     Articlo 
by  Julia  Varley. 


26  WOMEN  WORKERS 

paring  and  taking  meals.  The  great  matters  in 
which  men's  risks  far  exceeded  women's  lay  in 
injury  by  accidents  from  dangerous  machinery, 
explosion,  and  other  causes,  and  these  remain  still 
the  largest  risks  to  be  reduced  by  guidance  of  a 
thoroughly  skilled  Inspectorate,  combined  with 
safety  control  through  workers  and  employers. 

A  single  illustration  may  bring  home  the  rough- 
ness and  irresponsibility  of  supervision  of  girl 
workers,  sometimes  associated  in  the  nineties 
with  all  the  hardness  of  factory  life.  The  circum- 
stances were  in  some  features  exceptional,  but  by 
no  means  solitary,  in  roughness  and  even  barbarity, 
as  will  appear  in  later  pages  of  this  book.  It  was 
found,  on  investigation  of  a  complaint  from  an 
onlooker,  that  in  a  large  textile  factory  an  in- 
competent managing  foreman  had,  nominally  as  a 
means  of  discipline,  turned  a  great  fire-hose  on  to 
a  large  group  of  young  tenters  and  weavers.  The 
water,  drawn  from  the  mill  pond  and  filthy,  was 
directed  over  a  partition  upon  them  while  they 
were  jammed  in  a  narrow  vestibule  in  which  they 
took  refuge.  The  girls  (of  whom  forty  were 
examined  by  the  Inspector)  were  then  turned  out 
on  a  cold  March  day,  dripping,  to  walk  in  some 
cases  several  miles  to  their  homes.  The  whole 
matter  was  outside  the  Acts  and  nothing  could  be 
done  by  the  Factory  Department  beyond  visiting 
the  head  office  of  the  mills  and  drawing  attention 
to  the  circumstances.*  A  reprimand  to  the  foreman 
and  his  apology  was  so  far  satisfactory,  but  many 
years  passed  by  before  the  idea  of  supervision  by 
*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1895,  p.  119. 


AN  EXAMPLE  OF  OPPRESSION  27 

a  woman  was  considered  in  textile  mills  at  all.  It 
^required  the  shock  of  the  Great  War  to  secure 
provision  in  a  broader  way,  as  through  the  Act  of 
1916,  which  first  brought  welfare  supervision  and 
conditions  of  welfare  within  administrative  control. 

The   great   majority    of     the   earlier    complaints 
related,    year   after   year,    to    hours    ojL_ffio.rk   and 
sanitary  matters;  the  former  predominated,  especi- 
ally in  the" London  area,  and  until  the  year  1912 
complaints    of    legal    and    illegal    overtime    led    in 
numbers.     Complaints  relating  to  uncertain  wages 
under    the    Truck    Acts    and    lack~~of    piece-rate     i 
particulars    steadily    mounted,    but    this    distinct 
subject  merits  a  separate  chapter,  as  do  also  the 
employment  of  mothers  and  dangerous  trades.     The 
totals  of  all  kinds  of  recorded  written  complaints  i 
(in    addition    to    many    verbal    that    we    received  1 
annually)  rose  from  381  in  1896,  to  729  five  years/        ~ 
later,  and  to  2,025  in  a  further  ten  years.     Con-'    sg*t>^ 
fidence  grew  steadily  and  rapidly,  until  in  1819"lT^ 
woman  organiser  could  say  that  women  working 
in  factories  of  every  kind  of  industry,  in  the  north 
as  in  the  south,  strongly  and  "  passionately  "  call 
for  visits  of  Lady  Inspectors. 

Long  hours  of  work,  then,  at  the  outset  of  our 
career  were  the  greatest  trial  for  working  women — 
with  home  duties  claiming  much  of  their  strength 
in  most  instances.  The  ordinary  working  day 
generally  took  what  the  Factory  Acts  allowed,  and 
in  the  main  still  allow,  although  for  at  least  the 
past  ten  years  hours  of  employment  have  falleii 
to  reasonable  limits,  not  through  amendment  ojf 
the  law,  but  through  movement  of  public  opinion,) 


28  WOMEN  WORKERS 

growing  strength  of  women's  organisation,  and 
common-sense  of  many  employers.  In  textile 
factories  for  young  persons  and  women  these  hours 
were,  from  Monday  to  Friday,  ten,  and  on  Saturday 
six  and  a  half.  In  non-textile  factories  the  hours 
might  be  respectively  ten  and  a  half,  and  seven  and 
a  half  on  Saturday.*  A  spell  of  work  in  textile 
factories  could  not  exceed  four  and  a  half  hours, 
and  in  non-textile  factories  five  hours,  without  at 
least  half  an  hour  for  a  meal.  In  the  latter  case 
firms  often  found  it  convenient  to  work  two  five- 
hour  spells  with  a  break  at  midday  of  one  hour,  and 
on  Saturday  an  unbroken  spell  of  five  hours.  The 
heavy  burden  of  labour  on  this  basis  was  a  perennial 
source  of  complaint  from  women  and  girls  for  which 
there  was  no  remedy  in  the  Factory  Acts,  and  was 
a  cause  of  anxiety  and  regret  to  the  Women  In- 
spectors, until  the  pressure  of  war-time  production 
proved  its  ineffectiveness  for  increasing  output. 

(We  must  also  bear  in  mind  that  the  legal  hours 
in  unorganised  industries  were  frequently  and 
widely  exceeded. 

A  liberal  allowance  was  made  in  the  Acts  for 
overtime  in  many  non-textile  industries  and  pro- 
cesses, f  In  such  cases  overtime  could,  if  notified 
to  the  Inspector,  be  used  on  forty-eight  occasions 

*  I.e.,  in  textile  factories  from  6  a.m.  to  6  p.m.  or  7  a.m. 
to  7  p.m.,  with  two  hours,  which  must  bo  specified,  taken  off 
for  meals;  and  on  Saturdays  0  a.m.  to  1.30  p.m.,  with  an 
hour  for  a  meal.  In  non-textile  factories  a  period,  8  a.m. 
to  8  p.m.,  was  also  permissible. 

f  Act  of  1878,  sect.  53,  and  third  schedule,  part  three; 
Jamended  by  Act  of  1895,  sect.  14,  and  Act  of  1901,  sect.  49, 
second  schedule. 


LONG  HOURS  29 

in  the  year  (reduced  in  1901  to  thirty  occasions)  for 
an  additional  two  hours.  This  applied,  until 
amended  by  the  Act  of  1895,  to  young  persons  as 
well  as  women.  From  1896  onwards,  the  scandalous 
length  of  a  fourteen-hours'  day  on  forty-eight  days 
in  the  year  no  longer  legally  overtaxed  young 
workers  of  fourteen  years  and  upwards.*  Elasticity 
in  the  law  for  the  causes  allowed  appeared  reason- 
able at  first  sight,  but  what  was  authorised  as  an 
exception  became  under  stress  of  competition  a 
principle,  and  one  has  sympathy  with  the  young 
woman  who  said,  with  a  chorus  of  approval  from 
her  fellow- workers,  to  the  first  Woman  Inspector, 
"The  overtime  exception  just  spoils  the  Factory 
Act!"  Equally  readily  did  a  fellow-feeling  rise  for 
the  workgirl  who  asked,  "  What  sort  of  half -holiday 
it  was  that  began  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon?"  , 
In  illegal  overtime  the  bad  habit  was  continued  for  / 
years,  and  many  raids  and  devices  were  necessary  ' 
to  overcome  it.  Pn?1  pimpWr"""*-  of  women  in  a 
combined  retail  shop  and  workshop  was  for  long  a 
source  of  excessive  hours.  Thus,  when  they  had 
finished  the  legal  day  in  the  workshop,  they  might 
have  to  serve  in  the  shop  until  late  at  night.  This 
dual  employment  was  not  limited  to  the  normal 
daily  period  lawful  in  a  workshop  for  women  until 
after  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  1901.  Inspectors 
had  to  watch  overstrain  of  this  kind  helplessly  for 
years — where  they  could  not  move  an  employer  to 
see  the  harm  it  was  doing.     The  case  of  the  little 

*  And  even  thirteen-year-old  workers,  when  they  were 
qualified  by  an  educational  certificate  to  rank  as  a  young 
person. 


30  WOMEN  WORKERS 

thirteen  and  fourteen-year-old  "  matchers  "  in  dress- 
making establishments  had  to  wait  for  effectual 
remedy  from  another  source. 

A  complaint  we  received  in  1903  brought  to  light 
extreme,  but  by  no  means  unprecedented,  over- 
strain of  a  little  girl  of  fourteen,  legally  a  young 
person.  She  "  was  engaged  to  clean  and  sweep  the 
workrooms,  run  errands,  match  ribbon  and  silks  at 
shops,  and  generally  do  work  required  of  young 
apprentices  in  the  trade;  in  addition,  however,  she 
cooked  the  occupiers'  meals,  including  supper;  did 
the  work  of  the  house ;  arriving  at  the  workshop  first 
in  the  morning  to  light  fires  and  '  tidy  up,'  she  did  not 
leave  till  11  p.m.,  and  appeared  utterly  worn  out."* 
In  the  early  years  the  impetus  of  our  endeavours 
to  repress  excessive  hours  was,  at  times,  almost 
checked  by  a  possible  consequence.  Portable 
particles  of  manufacture  could  easily  be,  and  often 
were,  sent  home  with  the  worker  at  the  close  of  the 
legal  day,  and  all  the  more  easily  in  trades  and 
quarters  where  there  was  legal  and  legitimate  "  out- 
work "  by  non-factory  workers.  This  evil  grew 
to  considerable  proportions,  until  the  law  was 
strengthened  so  as  to  make  this  evasion  more 
difficult.  It  was  really  rooted  in  starvation  wages, 
and  eventually  the  advent  of  Trade  Boards  removed 
most  of  the  incentive  to  this  insidious  mode  of 
"sweating."!     It  was  often  extremely  difficult  for 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1903,  p.  223. 
f  Ibid.,  1910,  p.  155.     Section  31  of  fche  Factory  Act, 
1901,    restricting    employment    inside    and    outsido    the 
factory  or  workshop  on  the  same  day,  had  but  a  limited 
Effect. 


OVERTIME  AND  SWEATING  31 

the  wage-earner  on  a  narrow  margin  to  risk  losing 
an  immediate  addition  to  her  wage  (even  if  earned 
by  excessively  long  hours),  through  co-operating 
with  the  Inspector  by  giving  evidence  as  to  long 
hours  at  home.  This  co-operation  was  essential,  as 
the  Inspector's  entry  into  the  home  did  not  rest  on 
the  same  powers  as  entry  into  the  factory.  Yet  many 
successful  prosecutions  were  taken  in  serious  cases. 
For  example,  in  1911,  a  girl  of  fifteen,  working  for 
a  feather  manufacturer,  after  working  8.30  a.m. 
to  7  p.m.  in  the  workshop,  took  work  home,  and 
worked  8  p.m.  to  11  p.m.;  or  a  girl  knotted 
"  lancer  "  feathers,  taken  home,  from  7  p.m.  to 
1  a.m.,  and  from  5  a.m.  next  morning  until  she  went 
for  her  day  in  the  factory.*  Here  and  in  many 
other  places  the  girl  was  compelled  to  do  extra 
work  in  order  to  earn  enough  to  live. 

In  certain  processes  (making  preserves  from  fruit, 
preserving  or  curing  fish,  making  condensed  milk) 
overtime  was  legal  to  the  extent  of  a  fourteen-hours' 
day  on  no  less  than  ninety-six  days  in  the  year, 
until  the  Act  of  1895  reduced  the  figure  to  sixty 
days.  The  "  gutting,  salting,  and  packing  of  fish 
immediately  on  arrival  in  the  fishing-boats  "  was 
altogether  outside  regulation  by  the  Acts,  whether 
for  hours  or  sanitation — for  all  workers,  not  except- 
ing children.  By  the  Act  of  1901  children  received 
the  protection  of  the  Acts  as  regards  hours  of 
employment  in  this  industry  as  in  others.  In  1910 
at  Lowestoft  some  women  attempted  a  revolt 
against  late  night  hours,  but  without  success. 
Again,  at  Grimsby  in  1911,  a  group  of  very  young 
*  Ibid.,  1914,  p.  54. 


32  WOMEN  WORKERS 

women  struck  against  hours  that  were  usually 
sixteen  in  the  twenty-four.  They  were  obliged  to 
return  to  work,  as  the  employer,  who  also  employed 
them  at  other  stations  on  the  East  Coast,  pointed 
out  that  they  had  broken  their  contract  and  could 
claim  neither  wages  nor  return  fares  to  their  homes. 
At  length,  when  a  record  catch  of  herring  at  Yar- 
mouth had  brought  the  workers'  endurance  to  an 
end,  a  limit  of  daily  and  weekly  hours  was  negotiated 
by  the  Factory  Inspectors  and  voluntarily  agreed 
to  by  the  leading  fish-curers.  This  has,  since  1913, 
lessened  the  trials  of  the  hardy  fish-curing  girls 
and  men.  The  hours,  unlimited  during  the  summer 
months — June  to  September,  of  workers  engaged 
in  the  "  process  of  cleaning  and  preparing  fruit,  so 
far  as  necessary  to  prevent  the  spoiling  of  the  fruit," 
have  also  been  brought  within  a  certain  degree  of 
legal  control  by  an  Order  of  the  Secretary  of  State.* 
Regulation  of  hours  in  laundries  followed  a 
tangled  course  too  long  to  be  told  fully  here.  There 
was,  in  1895,  within  and  without  that  trade,  great 
opposition  to  any  control  whatsoever  on  account 
of  the  special  character  of  the  work  and  its  relation 
to  the  community,  only  half-developed  as  it  was 
from  domestic  to  factory  status,  and  closely  de- 
pendent on  conservative  household  arrangements. 
This  led  to  a  loose  and  ineffective  form  of  limitation 
of  hours  in  the  Act  of  1895.  The  elasticity  of  the 
governing  section  immediately  appeared  to  give 
sanction  to  the  late  hours  and  long  days  of  work, 
"  hitherto  regarded  as  unnecessary  evils  tolerated 
in  an  unregulated  industry.  .  .  .  The  fourteen  - 
*  Sefe  Special  Order,  dated  September  11,  1907. 


LAUNDRY  HOURS  AND  A  NEW  MOVEMENT  33 

hours'  day  met  with  outbursts  of  indignation  from 
women,  who  would  '  like  to  see  how  men  would 
stand  fourteen  hours  of  this  work  in  heat  and 
steam.'  "*  Packers  and  sorters  alone  benefited  by 
a  net  reduction  in  a  weekly  total  of  hours  that  had 
for  them  often  exceeded  seventy  hours.  Sixty 
hours  became  the  normal  legal  period,  augmented, 
however,  in  seasons  of  pressure  by  permissible  over- 
time to  sixty-six  hours.  And  these  hours  might 
be  compressed  into  five  instead  of  six  days  in  the 
week,  and  could  even  extend,  on  a  single  day,  from 
8  a.m.  to  11.30  p.m.  The  amending  and  con- 
solidating Act  of  1901  made  no  improvement  in 
these  hours,  but  in  1903  I  was  able  to  give  the  first 
account  of  a  new  and  hopeful  feature,  in  the  "  steady 
growth  of  a  strong  section  of  employers  who  have 
set  their  minds  on  inaugurating  a  more  rational 
system  of  employment  in  conformity  with  ordinary 
factory  hours,  "f  This  alone,  the  employers 
claimed,  in  views  ably  expressed  in  a  new  periodical, 
The  Poiver  Laundry,  would  raise  the  standards  of 
work  and  workers.  Very  considerable  improvement 
followed  from  the  Act  of  19J)7.  Thus,  in  laundries! 
as  in  textile  factories  a  hundred  years  earlier,  the! 
first  determined  efforts  towards  reform  sprang  fronjr 
an  enlightened  section  of  employers — in  tlus*1rrgta*nce, 
h  o  wever .  Inmiirn  gpj^-iay-Jjig. .  Tn  sppo tor  s  In  1899 
and  1900  they  gave  much  time  to  discussing  these 
problems  with  directors  at  the  head  offices  of 
multiple  laundries,  run  by  companies.  Efficient 
management  has  no  doubt  found  that  it  could  in 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1896,  p.  67. 
|  Ibid.,  1903,  p.  223. 


34  WOMEN  WORKERS 

course  of  time  compete  successfully  on  shorter 
hours  with  less  efficient  management  working  the 
full  legal  hours.  There  has  been  high  social  value 
in  the  experiments  in  hygiene  and  welfare  made 
by  leaders  in  industry  fitted  by  their  position  to 
secure  an  effective  trial — in  the  interests  not  only 
of  the  worker,  but  also  of  the  whole  community. 

Without  more  study  of  details,  so  much  may 
suffice  to  indicate  the  public  outlook  in  past  days, 
as  expressed  in  the  law  so  hard  to  amend,  on  the 
working  capacity  of  human  beings  in  manufacturing 
industry;  and  it  may  serve  to  measure  the  change 
that  has  come  about  in  ideas  and  habits  in  these 
matters. 

The  movement  within  industry  itself  has  almost 
sufficed  to  bring  the  whole  problem  of  hours  out  of 
,  the  region  of  compulsory  regulation  into  that  of  a 
reasonable,  voluntary  control  that  ought  to  be  the 
natural  birthright  of  workers  in  a  factory  system 
possessing  unlimited  capacity  for  large-scale  pro- 
duction by  applied  power.  Christian,  after  much 
suffering  with  his  friend  Hopeful  in  the  dungeon 
of  Giant  Despair,  remembered  the  key  in  his  bosom 
that  "  could  open  any  lock  in  Doubting  Castle." 
And  so  they  came  out  to  "  The  King's  Highway  " 
and  fared  on  to  the  Shepherds  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains,  whose  names  were  "  Knowledge,  Ex- 
perience, Watchful  and  Sincere." 

\  While  the  illusory  belief  in  a  need  for  exceedingly 
long  hours  lasted,  it  bore  most  severely  on  the 
weakest  manual  workers  —  women  and  girls. 
Although  the  best  hours  for  any  kind  of  industry 
can  only  be  reached  by  skilled  scientific  study,  the 


EVASION  AND  CONCEALMENT  35 

rough-and-ready,  if  slow,  method  of  amendment 
by  complaint  has  had  effect.  After  the  Acts  of 
1891  and  1895  had  increased  the  means  of  control 
of  illegal  overtime,  and  when  an  increased  Inspec- 
torate came  into  activity,  the  first  step  was  to 
enforce  the  legal  limits.  Nowhere  can  a  more  vivid 
account  be  read  of  the  immense  evil  of  excessive 
illegal  employment,  and  of  the  protean  forms  of 
evasion  of  law,  with  connivance  of  intimidated 
"  sweated "  workers,  than  in  the  pages  by  Mr. 
Lakeman,  in  the  Annual  Reports  of  1893  and  1894 — 
published  at  the  very  time  that  the  tide  of  com- 
plaints began  to  flow  to  Women  Inspectors.  They 
also  said  much  to  substantiate  Mr.  Lakeman's 
contentions  that  "  overtime  is  an  evil,  socially, 
morally,  commercially,"  weighing  upon  "  a  vast 
aggregation  of  people  slavishly  earning  a  poor 
lining  from  hard  taskmasters,"  particularly  in  the 
East  End  tailoring  trade,  where  one  sweating 
employer  oppressed  another  below  him,  and  the 
worker  at  the  lowest  end  of  the  scale  was  utterly 
helpless.  The  Women  Inspectors  were  the  first  to 
be  free  of  a  certain  handicap  in  dealing  with  the 
evasion  and  obstruction  that  led  to  concealment  of 
girl  and  women  workers  in  lavatories  and  bedrooms, 
and  they  were  the  first  to  be  able  to  unravel  tangled 
threads  of  evidence  by  confidential  visits  to  the 
women's  own  homes.  Even  in  a  very  extreme  case 
of  evasion  by  locking  of  outer  gates  and  darkly 
shaded  windows,  a  Woman  Inspector  has  been 
known  to  enter  the  premises  before  closing  time 
and  wait  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  yard,  in  order  to 
arrive  in  the  workrooms  at  a  suitable  moment  for 

4 


36  WOMEN  WORKERS 

a  complete  personal  observation  of  the  extent  of 
overtime. 

So  marked  was  the  gain  in  detection  of  hidden 
evils  that  a  proposal  was  made  in  1895  by  some 
Members  of  Parliament  to  bring  bedrooms  in  the 
same  building  with  a  workshop,  used  by  women 
or  girls,  within  the  scope  of  the  Factory  Acts,  and 
to  give  the  Woman  Inspector  special  power  of 
entry  and  inspection.  Fortunately,  however,  the 
proposal  was  not  accepted,  and  peculiar  power  was 
not  allotted  to  the  Woman  Inspector.  She  was 
able  by  quick  observation  and  action,  and  use  of 
the  Inspectors'  ordinary  powers  of  entry  and 
investigation,  to  achieve  what  was  needful  in  such 
cases  of  concealment;  exceptional  powers  would 
have  been  fatal  to  that  intangible,  yet  potent, 
personal  influence  of  an  Inspector,  which  rests 
largely  on  having  no  more  distinction  from  the 
ordinary  citizen  than  is  just  necessary  to  effect  the 
work  required.  Inspectors  have  always  been  able 
to  investigate  matters  not  strictly  breaches  of  the 
law  and  yet  needing  regulation.  In  tentatively 
sending  a  complaint  of  such  matters,  the  Secretary* 
of  the  Women's  Industrial  Council  once  wrote: 
"  I  know  how  very  much  can  be  done  by  the  tact 
and  personal  influence  of  an  Inspector,  and  even 
if  the  Inspector  effects  no  change,  her  visit  does 
afford  the  workers  a  sense  of  protection  which  is 
very  soothing  when  they  are  feeling  aggrieved." 

In  manifold  ways  similar  testimony  was  afforded 
by  communications  from  officers  of    the  Women's 

*  The  late  Miss  Wyatt  Papvvorth,  whose  constant  help 
I  desire  gratefully  to  record. 


"  A  SPLENDID  CATCH  "  37 

Trade  Union  League,  the  Legal  Advice  Bureau  for 
Working  Women,  the  Industrial  Law  Committee, 
and,  above  all,  by  the  late  Miss  Mary  MacArthur. 

As  the  work  grew  in  publicity  through  press 
reports  of  prosecutions,  confiding  supporters  sprang 
up  in  many  unexpected  directions.  They  appeared 
among  customers  of  dressmaking  businesses,  clergy 
and  district  visitors,  club  leaders,  schoolmistresses 
of  half-time  child  workers,  doctors,  and  many  others, 
not  to  speak  of  parents  anxious  to  save  a  daughter's 
health  without  risking  loss  of  her  employment. 
One  of  our  longest  and  most  tangled  enquiries 
sprang  from  a  communication  from  a  casual  reader 
of  the  Star  newspaper. 

"  Immediately  on  receipt  of  a  complaint  " — from 
one  or  other  of  such  sources,  once  wrote  one  In- 
spector to  another — "  we  made  a  raid  on  Saturday 
afternoon  between  5  p.m.  and  6  p.m.,*  and  had  a 
splendid  catch,  three  rooms  full.  The  man  set  in 
the  yard  to  watch  for  the  Inspector  offered  to  let 
us  in  '  to  see  the  housekeeper  ' ;  I  merely  remarked 
that  '  that  would  do  very  nicely  for  us,'  and  he  did 
not  realise  his  mistake  until  we  were  half-way  up 
the  narrow  staircase  !"  The  Inspector  momentarily 
"  felt  a  pang  "  for  the  watchman — but  a  prosecution 
followed  in  due  course,  and  the  firm,  of  European  \ 
and  Transatlantic  reputation  as  modistes  and  / 
furriers,  were  convicted. 

The    theatrical    costume    industry,    though    not 

large,  was  one  that  for  many  years  exercised  the 

ingenuity    and    taxed    the    vigilance    of    Women 

Inspectors — complaints  being  perennial.     Excessive 

^  *  The  legal  period  closed  at  4  p.m. 


38  WOMEN  WORKERS 

hours,  Sunday  employment,  illegal  homework,  over- 
crowded workrooms,  and  obstruction  of  the  In- 
spector, were  reported  in  1902-03*  and  at  intervals 
•in  a  succession  of  years.  In  1911  there  was  evidence 
of  a  deliberate  and  organised  breaking  of  the  law 
in  the  matter  of  overtime  that  did  not  appear  in 
any  other  industry.  One  London  occupier,  who 
was  prosecuted  twelve  times  in  ten  years,  was  found 
on  three  separate  occasions  in  1911  seriously  con- 
travening the  law,  a  typical  instance  of  long  hours 
being:  Friday,  8  a.m.  to  12  midnight,  followed  by 
7  a.m.  to  9  p.m.  on  Saturday,  with  some  Sunday 
employment  following.  Penalties  of  £20  and  costs 
on  conviction  were  evidently  not  deterrent. f  In 
the  great  majority  of  their  concentrated  attacks 
upon  illegal  hours  of  employment  in  other  industries 
Inspectors  found  that  most  occupiers  tended  to 
capitulate,  in  the  end,  to  firmness  and  persistence 
in  enforcing  the  legal  limits. 

Seaside  laundries,  busy  in  the  summer  season, 
offering  residential  employment  to  laundry  girls 
from  inland  towns,  presented  another  serious 
problem  in  suppression  of  evasions  of  the  law. 

Suppression  of  "  timejcnbb^ng  "  (that  is,  exceed- 
ing legal  limits  by--- small  instalments) — during 
prescribed  pauses  for  meals  and  just  before  6  a.m. — 
in  many  textile  mills  in  the  North  was  a  task  of 
a  detective  character,  on  a  large  scale,  beyond  the 
small  numbers  of  Women  Inspectors,  but  one  in 
which  they  at  least  took  their  proportionate  share 
with  their  men  colleagues.     Undoubtedly  women's 

*  AnnualJReport,  1902,  p.  153;  1903,  p.  224. 
t  Ited;  loiTTjsr-teft — ~~ 


STRAIN  OF  LEGAL  HOURS— SANITATION  39 

services  in  bringing  home  to  the  employer  contra- 
ventions of  legal  limits  were  more  peculiarly  needed 
where  proof  turned  not  so  much  on  the  exact 
moment  of  starting  a  huge  engine  driving  machinery 
in  a  large  mill,  but  rather  on  patient  examination 
of  witnesses  in  their  homes  as  well  as  the  workplace. 

By  the  year  191_2_an  increasing  number  of  comA 
plaints    showed    a   growing    determination   on    the ! 
part  of  women  workers  to  secure  such  limitation  of/ 
hours  as  was  enforceable  under  the  Factory  Acts/ 
One    complaint    of    excessive    hours    in    a    fancy 
stationery  factory  disclosed  quite  an  ordinary,  and 
legal,   state  of  affairs:    "Fifty  girls  over  eighteen 
years  of  age  had  been  working  weekly  from  8  a.m. 
to  10  p.m.  on  three  days,  from  8  a.m.  to  8  p.m.  on 
two  days,  and  from  8  a.m.  to  4  p.m.  on  Saturday, 
as  they  were  expected  to  do  for  from  six  to  eight 
weeks  in  the  busy  season."    For  young  pieceworkers 
the  resulting  fatigue  can  easily  be  imagined.* 

In  our  earlier  years  of  service,  complaints  of 
defects  in  general  sanitation  in  the  factory  and 
workshop  were,  as  already  said,  fewer  than  com-  ) 
plaints  of  excessive  or  illegal  hours  of  employment./ 
Later  on,  especially  after  voluntary  improvement 
in  hours  had  begun,  the  workers'  help  in  matters 
of  general  sanitation  in  the  workplace  grew  in 
volume  and  understanding.  The  value  of  these 
complaints,  in  bringing  the  Inspector  to  the  spot  for 
observation  of  the  concrete  facts,  was  more  direct 
and  immediate  than  in  complaints  of  hours  where 
evidence  was  requisite  from  the  workers.  Even  a 
vague  complaint  such  as:  "  Please  I  would  like  you 
*  Ibid.,  1912,  pp.  142,  145. 


40  WOMEN  WORKERS 

to  call  and  see  what  sort  of  a  place  the  women  have 
to  work  in,  as  it  is  in  an  awful  condition,"  was  good, 
provided  the  correct  address  of  the  shop  was  given. 

There  were  many  and  increasing  complaints  of 
lack  of  messrooms,  wholesome  drinking  water,  seats, 
cloakrooms,  and  washing  conveniences,  which  were 
outside  the  Act  until  1916.  Underground  and  ill- 
lighted  workrooms  were  also  the  subject  of  com- 
plaint, and  these  still,  in  1921,  await  full  hygienic 
control  by  the  Factory  Acts.  Until  the  year  1901 
even  general  ventilation  of  such  places  could  not  be 
secured,  and  the  result  may  be  seen  in  a  description 
in  1900  of  a  low  underground  workroom,  packed  with 
machinery,  the  narrow  window  slits  at  street  level 
being  the  sole  means  of  ventilation,  admitting  dust 
from  the  street,  just  where  the  gas  engine  was 
placed.  "  In  the  back  part,  where  pallid  women 
stand  at  the  machines,  gas  light  is  always  burning. 
Here  again  we  are  powerless  to  order  means  for 
introduction  of  tolerable  air."* 

Ill- ventilated,  badly  drained,  uncleanly  or  other- 
wise defective  workrooms,  were  the  subjects  of 
many  complaints  on  hygiene  of  the  workplace,  yet 
complaints  on  defects  in  sanitary  accommodationf 
and  extremes  of  temperature  were  even  more 
numerous.  Lack  of  means  of  heating  or  failure  to 
use  means  of  heating  was  increasingly  a  subject  of 
complaint  down  to  1914.  Many  recalled  the  words 
quoted  by  Miss  Abraham  in  the  Annual  Report  of 
1894:  "Is  it  not  possible  to  compel  Mrs.  to 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  p.  367. 
f  Unsuitable,  insanitary,  not  separate  for  the  sexes,  or 
totally  lacking. 


ENLIGHTENMENT  41 

give  her  workgirls  a  fire  ?  .  .  .  It  may  really 
mean  death  to  some  of  the  girls.  I  do  not  know 
what  it  will  be  like  to-day,  when  they  get  there 
with  their  skirts  and  feet  wet  after  the  snow." 
The  problem  shifted,  in  that  as  in  other  matters  of 
health,  after  successive  amendments  of  the  Act  had 
given  Inspectors  power  to  intervene  more  effectually. 
Increased  stringency  of  the  Acts  appeared  to  extend 
the  number  of  employers  anxious  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  factory  life  beyond  the  statutory 
minimum.  It  was  not  only  the  employer,  but, 
sometimes  even  more  rapidly,  the  workers  who  ^, 
found  enlightenment  in  seeing  standards  improved 
or  strengthened  by  legal  requirements.  At  first 
all  the  weight  and  mass  of  complaints  helping  our 
administration  came  from  the  most  elementary 
needs.  And,  even  there,  too  many  workers  were 
mute,  until  awakened  by  proof  that  improvement 
was  possible.  It  was  only  later  that  the  natural 
intelligence  of  the  worker  could  co-operate  in  build- 
ing up  larger  and  more  specialised  conditions  of 
welfare.  Speaking  of  a  great  step  onwards  in 
sanitation,  Miss  Paterson  wrote,  in  1902,  that  the  • 
indifference  of  the  employer  had  resulted  in  a  | 
corresponding  indifference  on  the  part  of  the  worker,  I 
who,  "  acquiescing  at  first  in  conditions  which  she 
feels  powerless  to  improve,  gradually  ceases  to  feel  j 
them  an  offence  to  her.  There  is  no  doubt  one  * 
loses  sensitiveness  to  indecent  arrangements  just  as 
surely  as  to  impure  air,  but  the  moral  effect  in  the 
one  case  is  much  the  same  as  the  physical  effect  in 
the  other."* 

*  Annual  Report,  1902,  p.  154. 


42  WOMEN  WORKERS 

Ten  years  earlier  some  working  men  representa- 
tives of  the  Yorkshire  textile  industries  gave  it  in 
evidence  before  the  Royal  Commission  on  Labour 
that  mill  life  under  the  then  existing  conditions 
and  organisation  of  work  was  "  not  conducive  to 
ideas  of  propriety,  gentleness,  and  nobility." 
Against  such  conditions  the  Women  Inspectors 
never  ceased  to  strive,  by  varied  and  vigorous 
attack  on  insanitary  conditions  that  blunted  per- 
ceptions of  suitability,  and  by  friendly  appeals  to 
emploj^ers  that  sometimes  met  with  excellent 
response.  Sometimes,  again,  action  had  to  be 
taken  against  indescribably  bad  conditions  that 
were  obviously  a  legacy  from  mediaeval  standards, 
by  the  indirect  method  of  laying  an  information 
against  the  occupier  of  the  factory  for  effluvia  in 
hot  spinning  rooms,  before  the  law  provided  for 
direct  attack  on  the  ground  of  the  unsuitability  of 
the  provision  made.  In  a  case  that  I  took,  in  1896, 
against  a  Limited  Liability  Company  in  Lancashire, 
after  repeated  written  warning  to  the  management, 
one  of  the  directors  appeared  in  court  to  say  they 
had  not  realised  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  mill. 
After  a  long  hearing,  the  magistrates  asked  me  to 
meet  the  directors  out  of  court,  with  their  solicitor, 
which  I  did  (the  Inspector  in  charge  of  the  district 
accompanying  me),  in  the  gilded  council  chamber 
of  the  municipal  authority.  The  dignified  group 
of  directors  asked  me  then  to  "  take  the  chair," 
and  we  rapidly  came  to  a  conclusion,  as  to  the 
necessary  constructive  work,  that  satisfied  the  local 
sanitary  authority  as  well  as  myself. 

Sometimes  a  local  authority  would  act  vigorously 


INSANITARY  CONDITIONS  43 

on  receipt  of  notice  of  such  defects  from  a  Factory 
Inspector,  one  asking  for  more  notifications,  another 
inviting  conference  as  to  other  mills,  and  they  were 
most  ready  to  move  where  they  had  not  themselves 
to    take    the    primary    initiative    against    fellow- 
townsmen.     A  single  illustration  may  be  given  in 
the  case  (by  no  means  the  worst  of  its  kind)  of  a 
large    old    textile    mill,    where     local    authorities, 
acting  on  our  notice,  took  up  such  matters  with 
increasing  thoroughness.     "  Dark,  un ventilated  con- 
veniences,    used     indiscriminately     by     men     and 
women,  opened  directly  off  hot  spinning  rooms.  .  .  . 
No  attempt  to  secure  privacy  was  made,  the  doors 
were  without  fastenings  .  .  .  the  whole  connected, 
not  with  a  drain,  but  a  huge  cesspool — a  state  of  I 
things   more   injurious   to   morals   and   health   can/ 
scarcely  be  imagined.     The  amount  of  accommoda-/ 
tion   was   seriously   inadequate,   besides  being  un-j 
suitable  and  unhealthy."*     There  was  an  element 
of  hope  in  spite  of  the  overwhelming  amount  of 
work  to  be  done,  in  that  most  of  the  very  worsts 
conditions  of  this  kind  were  found  in  the  oldest 
industries  and  factories,  such  as  Lancashire,  York- 
shire,    Staffordshire     Potteries,     and     the     Black 
Country,   where   the   blunting   of   perceptions   kad 
been   longest   at   work.     This   factor   checked   our 
occasional  feeling  of  despondency  at  often  finding 
the  most  barbarous  conditions  where  trade  union 
organisation    was    at   its   highest    strength.      Inci- 
dentally it  at  once  confirmed  the  Women  Inspectors 
in  thinking  that  they  really  had  a  new  mission  as 
well  as  a  more  enduring  place  in  the  guardianship 
*  Annual  Report^  1903,  p.  203. 


44  WOMEN  WORKERS 

of  women  in  industry.  Even  although  this  matter 
of  sanitary  conveniences  was  but  an  elementary  one, 
yet  it  was  fundamental,  and  the  vVomen  Inspectors 
were  only  too  anxious  to  clear  the  way  for  their  more 
progressive  and  difficult  work  in  respect  of  health 
and  physical  fitness  of  the  women  and  girls  expressly 
allotted  by  the  Home  Office  to  their  care. 

The  legal  provisions  for  the  sanitation  of  the 
workplace  are  complex;  the  meagre  basis  of  law 
on  which  we  had  to  build  at  first,  and  a  few  of  the 
results  secured,  can  only  be  slightly  indicated. 

When  we  began  our  work  there  was  no  definition 
in  the  law  of  what  constituted  overcrowding  of  a 
workroom,  and  only  on  proof  (a  difficult  matter)  of 
actual  danger  or  injury  to  health  of  the  persons 
employed  could  any  abatement  of  overcrowding  be 
enforced.  Some  of  the  worst  examples  were  found 
in  country  towns  and  in  attic  workrooms,  often 
used  as  bedrooms.  Miss  Paterson  cited  a  case  in 
1894  where  only  91  cubic  feet  of  space  was  allowed 
per  person  in  a  room  with  a  roof  6  feet  4  inches  in 
height.  Overcrowding  was  always  rare  in  factories, 
however,  and  complaints  chiefly  led  us  to  cases 
of  crowded  floor  space,  not  definitely  illegal.  For 
/general  ventilation,  as  distinct  from  mechanical 
I  exhaust  for  dust,  gases,  vapours,  and  other  im- 
I  purities  generated  by  the  work,  there  was  no  legal 
Vprovision  before  1901,  and  to  this  question  in  its 
connection  with  lighting,  heating,  and  cleanliness  I 
will  presently  revert.  There  was  no  provision  at\ 
all  touching  maintenance  of  a  reasonable  temperature  J 
before  the  Act  of  1895.  The  provision  then  made 
was  quickly  found  defective,  and  we  had  to  wait 


THE  LAW  AND  GENERAL  HYGIENE     45 

luntil  1901  for  powers  to  enforce  means  of  heating 
ithat    did    not    interfere    with    purity    of    the    air. 
Drainage  of  workroom  floors  liable  to  become  wet 
could  not  (except  under  a  special  clause  in  the  Act  „. 
of  1895  affecting  laundries  only)  be  enforced  before 
the  Act  of   1901.     Power  to  determine  what  wasA 
sufficient  and  suitable  sanitary  accommodation  by  an  J 
order  of  the  Secretary  of  State  was  first  provided/ 
for  by  the  Act  of  1901.     This  had  no  legal  force' 
where  local  sanitary  authorities — with  widely  vary- 
ing   standards — had    adopted    certain    powers    to 
regulate  the  matter  under  the  Public  Health  Acts. 
In  1903  such  an  order  was  first  made,  based  on  the 
experience    and   recommendations    of    the   Women 
Inspectors.     This  order  gradually  set  the  standard 
frequently  adopted  by  local  authorities,  but  still, 
in   1921,  this  remains  merely  a  voluntary  matter 
in  the  majority  of  sanitary  districts  outside  Scot- 
land.    "  The  new  rules  are  just  coming  into  force  + 
here,"  said  one  working  woman  correspondent  to/ 
an  Inspector,  in  1903;  "  they  give  us  just  what  we 
need."*     In  the  previous  years  "  a  rain  of  resolu- 
tions   and    petitions  "    reached    my    office    from 
organised    working    women,    which    demonstrated 
that  working  women  were,  to  use  their  own  words, 
"  most  ardently  favourable  in  respect  of  the  draft 
order   of   the   Home   Secretary  "   just   referred   to, 
"  so  that  decent  and  satisfactory  arrangements  may 
be  completed  and  the  hands  of  Inspectors  strength- 
ened   in    the    discharge    of    duty."f     As    regards 
cleanliness  of  the  workplace,  that  universal  need, 

*  Annual  Report,  1903,  p.  203. 
t  Ibid.,  1902,  p.  154. 


46  WOMEN  WORKERS 

1  there  has  been  since  1878  an  absolute  requirement 
in  the  forefront  of  the  Act  that  every  factory  shall 
jbe  "  kept  in  a  cleanly  state."  The  duty  of  periodical 
cleansing  by  lime-washing  (or  other  prescribed 
methods)  of  walls,  ceilings,  etc.,  has  too  often  been 
read  as  covering  the  whole  ground,  and  methodical 
and  regular  cleansing  of  floors  and  benches,  by 
moist  as  well  as  dry  methods,  has  always  been  a 
subject  to  which  Women  Inspectors  have  had  largely 
to  devote  their  powers  of  persuasion. 

The  provision  of  drinking  water — a  fundamental 
need  of  human  beings  engaged  in  physical  labour, 
and  a  subject  of  frequent  complaint  from  1894 
onwards — was  left  solely  to  regulation  by  local 
sanitary  authorities,  until  an  order  was  made  in 
1917,  under  powers  given  by  the  Factories  and 
Miscellaneous  Provisions  Act  of  1916,  This  secured, 
at  last,  that  an  order  requiring  a  conveniently 
accessible  supply  of  wholesome  drinking  water 
could  be  enforced  in  every  factory  or  workshop 
employing  twenty -five  or  more  workers.  The 
lighting  of  factories  and  workshops,  whether  natural 
or  artificial,  has  never  yet  been  generally  regulated 
by  any  of  the  Acts  from  1878  to  1916,  although 
there  are  many  references  to  it  in  our  published 
reports  from  1897  onwards.  In  1911  the  special 
Report  on  "  Illumination  in  Factories,"  by  Mr. 
D.  R.  Wilson,*  ultimately  brought  the  matter  under 
general  review,  and  in  January,  1913,  a  Committee 
was  ajDpointed  by  the  Home  Secretary;  this  was 
to  enquire  into  and  report  on  the  conditions  neces- 

*  Included  in  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1911, 
p.  239. 


DRINKING  WATER  AND  LIGHTING      47 

sary  for  the  adequate  and  suitable  lighting  (natural 
and  artificial)  of  factories  and  workshops,  having 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  work  carried  on,  pro- 
tection of  the  eyesight  of  workers  employed,  and 
the  various  forms  of  illumination.*  Miss  Squire, 
who  had  given  much  attention  and  study  to  defec- 
tive lighting  and  its  remedies  in  factories,  was 
made  a  member  of  this  Committee  in  November, 
1920.f  The  bearing  of  this  problem  of  lighting  on 
safety  and  accident  prevention  as  well  as  on  health 
has  been  long  in  receiving  the  attention  that  it 
deserved  from  the  British  legislature.  In  1897,  I 
drew  attention  to  its  recognition  by  French,  Belgian, 
German,  and  Austrian  legislatures.  That  the 
workers  felt  an  intense  need  of  skilled  attention  to 
the  question  is  evident  from  a  letter  of  complaint 
in  19011  which  besought  an  Inspector  to  "  give  a 
call  unawares  and  see  the  black  holes  of  workrooms 
we  have  to  try  and  work  in,  with  scarcely  any 
light.  .  .  .  Please  say  nothing  about  receiving  this 
letter,  but  act  on  its  contents,  and  do  for  us  what 
we  need  in  the  way  of  proper  light  and  ventilation.'/ 
Probably  the  most  important  of  the  early  con- 
tributions of  Women  Inspectors  to  improved  sani- 
tation in  the  factory  lay  in  their  insistence,  year 
after  year,  on  the  close  relation  between  good  general 
ventilation,  cleanliness  (including  freedom  from 
dirt,  dust,  effluvia,  and  organic  impurities),  lighting 

*  Departmental  (Home  Office)  Committee  on  Lighting  in 
Factories  and  Workshops,  1915,  Cd.  8000;   1921,  Cd.  118. 

f  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  for  1920, 
chap,  ix.,  for  a  resume  by  Miss  Squire  of  the  recent  ad- 
vances and  parallel  delays,  in  progress,  in  this  vital  matter 
in  factories. 


48  WOMEN  WORKERS 

and  temperature,  and  on  the  value  of  exact  tests 
and  standards  in  these  matters.  Time  after  time 
phthisis  was  found  to  be  rampant  in  particular 
v  ■  factories  where  anaemic,  poorly  nourished  girls 
worked  long  hours,  in  light  sedentary  work,  and 
at  dainty  white  work,  under  combined  defects  in 
cleanliness,  ventilation,  lighting,  heating.  In  such 
places,  before  the  days  when  canteens  and  playing- 
fields  were  considered  suitable  adjuncts  to  factory 
life,  the  steady  undermining  of  health  that  went 
on  was  really  greater  than  in  many  a  factory  under 
special  rules  for  dangerous  processes,  or  supplied 
with  good  exhaust  ventilation  for  injurious  dust. 
In  such  instances  the  co-operation  of  local  Medical 
Officers  of  Health  under  the  Public  Health  Authori- 
ties, both  directly  and  in  their  reports,  was  in- 
valuable. As  Dr.  Niven  in  his  Annual  Report  for 
Manchester  in  1902  observed:  "Unless  the  work- 
shop is  free  from  dust  no  mode  of  ventilation  can 
Vbe  quite  satisfactory.  The  first  requisite,  then,  is 
cleansing,  carried  out  in  a  proper  manner.  Ventila- 
tion must  be  considered  in  reference  to  each  indi- 
vidual case,  but  cleansing  is  a  universal  requirement 
as  to  which  definite  rules  can  be  laid  down  .  .  . 
it  is  imperative  in  the  interests  of  health  that 
cleansing  should  be  by  wet  sweeping." 
•  The  extra  need  of  fresh,  pure  air  for  maintenance 
of  their  efficiency  at  work  is  a  marked  constitutional 
feature  in  women  and  girls,  and  their  sensitiveness 
to  cold  and  draughts  is  proportionate  also  to  the 
sedentary  character  of  much  of  their  work.  The 
Women  Inspectors  were  thus  rapidly  brought  up 
against   the    interdependent    problemsof   artificial 


PHTHISIS  AND  ELEMENTS  OF  HYGIENE  49 

liglrting;  and  heating.  Fine  garment-making  and 
embroidery  call  both  for  good  lighting  and  for 
freedom  from  presence  of  coal-dirt  and  smuts  in 
the  air,  whether  admitted  by  open  windows  or  by 
combustion  inside  the  workroom.  When  we  began 
our  inspection,  closed  windows  and  absence  of  fire 
in  the  grates  was  the  rough-and-ready  way  of 
securing  "  clean "  air  for  delicate  fabrics,  while 
warmth  had  to  be  secured  chiefly  by  using  gaslight 
burners  of  the  bat's- wing  type,  as  a  means  of  main- 
taining a  temperature  in  which  nimble  fingers  could 
carry  on  their  skilled  work.  Later,  from  January  1, 
1896,  the  unhooded  gas  stoves — some  of  the  crudest 
type — fitted  in  many  workshops  and  smaller  factories 
in  consequence  of  the  first  legal  requirement  in  the 
Act  of  1895  that  "  adequate  measures  shall  be 
taken  for  securing  and  maintaining  a  reasonable 
temperature  in  each  room  in  which  any  person  is 
employed  "  constituted  strong  new  arguments  for 
powers  to  require  good  general  ventilation.  Even 
so  dangerous  a  gas  as  carbon  monoxide,  produced1 
in  appreciable  quantities  by  some  of  these  stoves, 
not  being  an  impurity  "  generated  in  the  course 
of  the  manufacturing  process,"  could  not  be  held 
legally  subject  to  the  provision  for  exhaust  ventila- 
tion.* Nor  was  there  any  legal  remedy  until  the 
Act  of  1901  embodied  a  requirement  that  the 
measures  taken  for  securing  a  reasonable  tempera- 
ture should  not  interfere  with  the  purity  of 
the  air. 

A  great  deal  of  work  by  the  Women  Inspectors 
in    support    of    cleanliness    has    directly    furthered 
*  Factory  and  Workshop  Act,  1878,  sects.  3  and  36. 


J 


50  WOMEN  WORKERS 

maintenance  of  good  natural  light  in  workplaces. 
Not  only  have  they  pressed  for  regular  cleansing 
by  wet  methods  of  floors,  but  also  for  the  same 
treatment  of  windows  and  skylights;  and  the  atten- 

/tion  of  occupiers  was  constantly  drawn  to  the  value 
of  such  aids  as  reflectors,  luxfer  prisms,  and  the 
like,  in  mitigating  darkness  or  prolonging  natural 
light  in  underground  workrooms.  Innumerable 
confidential  complaints  from  workers  furthered  our 
activity  in  this  direction.  "  In  all  the  rooms  of 
one  badly  lighted  factory  the  windows  were  so  dirty 
I  that  .  .  .  artificial  light  had  to  be  used  during  the 
day.  .  .  .  The  gas  with  old  flickering  bat's-wing 
burners  being  always  in  use,  large  numbers  of  the 
girls  complained  of  headache  and  weariness.  This 
they  attributed  to  the  bad  light  more  than  to  the 
impure  air."*  It  was  about  1903,  after  the  amended 
provisions  regarding  temperature  and  ventilation 
had  had  time  to  work,  that  women  began  to  send 
increasingly  definite  complaints:  "Nearly  all  the 
workers  suffer  from  colds  .  .  .  now  the  present 
gas  fire,  whenever  there  is  a  down  draught,  drives 
into  the  workroom  poisonous  carbonic  acid  gas." 

The  discomfort  of  low  temperatures  was  intensi- 
fied in  some  occupations,  such  as  aerated  water 
works,  where  floors,  usually  of  concrete  or  stone, 
are  liable  to  be  very  wet,  and  bottles  and  siphons 
alike  cold  to  handle.  Bottle  washers  got  some 
comfort  where  the  water  was  hot,  but  liability  to 
soaked  garments  aggravated  suffering  from  cold 
rooms  in  wet  places. 

Extremes  of  temperature  in  the  workplace  at  the 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  p.  136. 


SCIENTIFIC  CONTROL  51 

other  end  of  the  scale,  rising  to  100°  F.  or  110°  F., 
or  even  higher,  are  specially  connected  as  a  rule 
with  the  nature  of  the  processes,  and  sometimes  \ 
increase  the  risks  of  dangerous  and  injurious  indus-  I 
tries,  especially  where  lead  is  present,  as  in  certain^ 
pottery  processes.  There  the  problem  is  to  limit  the 
heat  without  injuring  the  process.  In  other  cases  the 
heat  results  from  the  work,  and  can  be  mitigated 
without  injuring  it.  In  laundries,  for  example,  as 
a  mother  once  put  it,  young  girls  can  get  "  all 
faded  "  through  unregulated  heat  and  laborious 
work;  and  sometimes  sunlight  streaming  through 
inadequately  shielded  skylights,  say,  in  pressing- 
rooms  of  clothing  factories,  or  in  jam  factories, 
causes  temperatures  of  96°  F.  and  numerous  cases 
of  fainting  amongst  the  girls.  Painting  or  white- 
washing of  such  skylights,  where  blinds  are  not 
practicable,  was  advised  in  mitigation  of  the  dis- 
comfort. 

It  is  mournful  to  contemplate  the  amount  of  slow 
injury  to  the  human  system,  insidiously  at  work 
and  showing  its  effects  in  disturbed  physiological  >-^ 
functions  and  malnutrition,  sometimes  with  resul- 
tant desire  for  stimulants.  This  must  have  long 
handicapped  not  only  the  workers — vainly  appealing 
for  removal  of  half-understood  defects — but  also  the 
efficiency  in  industry  and  the  prosperity  of  manu- 
facturers. The  old  British  neglect  of  scientific 
control  of  ordinary  hygiene  in  the  workplace  has 
to  answer  for  much.  Even  when  the  nation  was 
apprised  of  the  relation  of  disease  to  dirt,  in  environ- 
ment, including  air,  and  lack  of  means  for  main- 
taining personal  cleanliness — how  slow-moving  was 

5 


52  WOMEN  WORKERS 

action  to  apply  the  knowledge  effectively,  through 
laws  for  protection  of  the  health  of  the  industrial 
workers  !  The  relation  of  disease  and  accidental 
injury  to  darkness  and  to  unnecessary  use  of  defec- 
tive artificial  lighting,  an  old  problem,  is  only 
beginning  to  come  into  serious  consideration  at  the 
close  of  the  period  covered  by  this  book. 

Along  with  recent  advance  in  these  matters  we 
have  to  reckon  the  benefits  accruing  from  the  recent 
rational  reduction  in  hou&s,  and  from  development 
of  other  fundamentals  of  welfare — before  all,  the 
means  of  partakingoi  good  ioocT  in  many  works. 

It  was  significant  that  the  Women  Inspectors, 
as  a  branch  of  the  Factory  Department  specially 
charged  with  the  duty  of  interpreting  and  responding 
to  the  needs  of  women  workers,  received  throughout 
their  service  certain  appeals  and  complaints  on 
questions  of  conduct,  or  conditions  in  the  factory 
essentially  flflW-tincr  mnnls  These  appeals  on 
matleTs^not  directly  under  the  Factory  Acts  were 
never  numerous,  though  markedly  increasing  in  the 
flast  few  years  before  the  War,  when  women  workers 
[were  growing  bolder  in  self-expression  and  self-help. 
The  relative  smallness  in  their  number  was  balanced 
by  their  intensity. 

From  about  1896  onwards,  the  mere  possibility  of 
the  visit  to  any  factory  of  a  Woman  Inspector 
coming  from  headquarters  in  Whitehall — strongly 
bent  on  sanitary  reforms  connected  with  increased 
cleanliness,  fresh  air,  light  in  the  factory,  physical 
fitness  of  the  worker,  suitability  in  lavatory  arrange- 
ments— had  a  wide  and  marked  effect.  She  gave 
a  new  meaning  to  the  technical  requirements  of  the 


MANNERS  AND  MORALS  53 

law  by  her  steady  insistence  on  the  value  of  respon- 
sible superintendence  of  working  conditions.  The 
very  concentration  of  the  Women  Inspectors  in  a 
team-work  that  could  be  applied  in  any  area  or 
centre,  or  to  any  particular  problem  in  any  industry, 
tended  to  co-ordinate  the  work  of  the  whole  Depart- 
ment in  these  technical  things,  as  well  as  to  unify 
the  outlook.  Employers,  sympathetic  to  advance, 
were  helped  to  come  into  contact,  sometimes  at 
their  own  express  wish  being  put  in  communication 
with  each  other.  Undoubtedly  this  whole  move- 
ment, linked  as  it  was  with  a  little  united  band  of 
enthusiasts,  moving  up  and  down  the  very  dusty 
ways  of  industrial  life,  did  much  to  hasten  im- 
provement also  in  things  affecting  manners  and 
morals. 

"  Why  have  I  never  had  a  visit  from  a  Lady 
Inspector  before  ?"  was  a  question  from  an  employer 
that  indicates  a  sentiment  expressed  more  and 
more  frequently  as  the  Women  Inspectors  increased 
in  weight  of  experience.  Nothing,  however,  excelled 
in  importance  the  confidence  engendered  between 
the  woman  worker  and  the  woman  Factory  Inspector 
through  the  successful  steady  rooting  out  of  abuses. 
In  1902  a  girl,  who  had  given  evidence  for  Miss 
Squire  two  years  earlier  in  a  prosecution  for  illegal 
employment,  wrote  to  her  of  a  criminal  assault 
made  on  her  by  a  fellow-workman  on  a  dark  winter  \ 
morning  in  the  factory,  and  she  got  help  and  advice,  \ 
though  not  under  the  Factory  Act.  At  such  wide  \ 
intervals  as  1900,  1904,  1907,  1912,  I  see  in  our 
published  reports  records  of  complaints  of  brutal 
conduct  by  managers,  foremen,  overlookers,  towards 


\ 


54  WOMEN  WORKERS 

young  girls.  Even  an  employer  in  a  spinning  mill 
was  implicated  in  one  of  the  earliest  of  these.  "  It 
seems  scarcely  credible  that  nowadays  (1900)  little 
doffers  should  be  knocked  down  by  grown  men, 
violently  struck  on  head  and  shoulders  .  .  .  yet 
there  was  evidence  of  little  half-starved,  under- 
sized creatures  who  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  a 
burly  overlooker  and  a  tall  imposing  member  of  the 
firm  .  .  .  too  strong  to  be  doubted.  When  tackled 
with  such  conduct  and  warned,  neither  denied  the 
charge."  Another  complaint,  in  1912,  disclosed 
similar  conditions.  The  visiting  Inspector,  again 
Miss  Squire,  chanced  while  half-screened  by  a  pillar 
in  a  workshed,  to  witness  an  example  of  such 
brutality,  when  a  foreman  seized,  shook,  and  flung 
from  him  a  young  girl.  She  brought  this,  with 
various  serious  contraventions  of  the  Act  that  she 
found  in  the  factory,*  before  the  managers,  and 
"  shamed  them  into  taking  action  to  bring  about 
real  improvement  in  the  conditions."  Cases  of 
drunkenness  and  abusive  language  and  complaints 
of  immorality  were  similarly  dealt  with  and  im- 
provements secured.  In  some  cases  the  police, 
investigating  immorality  of  an  employer  towards 
workgirls,  sought  our  aid.  In  other  directions, 
employers  would  seek  our  guidance  in  controlling 
moral  risks.  All  such  occasions  afforded  a  welcome 
opportunity  to  the  Inspector  for  giving  information 

*  For  example,  neglect  to  prosent  seventeen  little  girls 
for  examination  as  to  physical  fitness  by  the  certifying 
surgeon,  of  whom  five  were  subsequently  rejected  by  him 
and  sent  for  medical  treatment;  sanitary  conveniences  not 
separate  for  boys  and  girls. 


GRATITUDE  AND  THANKS  55 

to  the  occupier  about  the  well-attested  gain  of 
wisely  chosen,  trained  women's  superintendence  in 
matters  of  hygiene  and  welfare  in  the  factory.  In 
one  noteworthy  instance  the  discovery  by  Miss 
Martindale  of  some  oppressive  treatment  of  little 
half-timers  in  a  great  textile  mill  in  Belfast  led  the 
active-minded  manager  to  ask  her  whether  he  could 
find  a  trained  woman  to  carry  on,  daily,  in  the  mill 
such  work  as  she  had  done  at  a  single  visit.  The 
woman  was  found,  and  she  did  much  for  the 
health  and  welfare  of  men,  women,  and  children 
there. 

In  1896  it  was  first  recorded  that  letters  of  thanks 
from  workers  for  improvements  effected  by  the 
Inspectors  were  coming  in,  sometimes  without  any 
clue  to  the  writers.  And  an  Inspector  would  be 
stopped  in  the  street  by  a  group  of  girls,  who  had 
previously  complained  verbally  during  an  inspec- 
tion, to  say  how  much  better  things  were  going 
since  "  fining  had  been  reduced  " ;  or  a  railway  porter 
lifting  an  official  bag  into  the  train  would  give  a  word 
of  thanks  on  behalf  of  a  sister  or  friend  whose  over- 
time had  been  reduced.  Or  one  workgirl  confiding 
a  hardship  in  her  workplace  to  another  girl  casually 
met  outside,  would  be  told  to  "  come  along  to  the 
Lady  Inspector  who  helped  me  a  year  ago,"  and, 
investigation  and  prosecution  following,  would  set 
in  train  a  similar  series  of  remedial  activities. 

Ireland  had,  as  in  so  many  other  things,  special 
ways  of  her  own  in  appealing  to  and  thanking  the 
Inspector  for  aid  needed  and  rendered:  "Please 
.  .  .  would  you  kindly  see  to  the  heating  of  our 
Room  .  .  .  the  stitching  department  is  not  venti- 


56  WOMEN  WORKERS 

lated,  it  is  terrible  fusty  you  would  never  want  a 
headache  if  you  had  to  work  in  it  .  .  .  thanking  you 
in  anticipation.  We  have  proved  your  worth 
before,  every  worker  knows  you  are  a  lady."  Another 
hopeful  set  of  complainants,  who  wrote  of  lack  of 
any  means  of  heating  in  a  draughty  finishing  loft, 
signed  themselves,  "  Yours  expectant,"  and  the 
Inspector,  Miss  Martindale,  on  her  arrival  was 
greeted  with:  "Thank  God,  you've  come."  Or, 
again,  another  wrote  thanks  and  pled  for  contin- 
uance of  her  watchfulness:  "Thank  you,  mem, 
for  coming  to  X.  They  are  doing  what  is  right 
since  you  were  here  if  you  only  knew  how  much 
good  you  done  .  .  .  please  mem  be  sure  and  watch 
them."* 

In  England  the  expression  of  such  thanks  was 
generally  more  impersonal,  but  not  less  grateful 
and  confident.  One  letter  I  received  stands  out  in 
my  memory  always,  in  its  prompt  response  to  inves- 
tigation of  a  complaint  of  overtime  by  Miss  Paterson. 
"It  is  no  use  to  send  an  Inspector  to  ask  the  girls 
questions,  for  they  depend  on  their  living  and  dare 
not  say  much ;  but  I  must  say  that  the  lady  sent  was 
just  the  sort  of  friend  a  dressmaker  requires."! 
Miss  Tuckwell  wrote  in  1897,  as  Honorary  Secretary 
of  the  Women's  Trade  Union  League,  that  the 
confidence  of  the  factory  women  was  "  based  on  the 
Eact  that  their  representations  are  received  and 
listributed  by  a  woman,  and  by  women  enquired 
lto  and  redressed";  "Our  Women  Inspectorate 
has  adapted  itself  exactly  to  English  needs,  and, 

*    An  mml   R.ftpni-f,  nf  XU^-f-frtHpRntrrrr  TTnTTpTTiz  1  ■ 

t  lUd.,  1902,  p.  153. 


PERSISTENCE  AND  REMEMBRANCE     57 

as  a  Yorkshire  workgirl   remarked,   '  We  are  well 
suited  by  the  Lady  Inspectors.'  "* 

In  all  this  part  of  the  history  of  administration 
of  the  Factory  Acts  one  sees  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  very  great  need  there  was  of  intuitive  insight 
and  extraordinary  persistence  in  probing  or  tracking 
down  ills  peculiarly  affecting  industrial  women  and 
girls  that,  as  a  whole,  were  never  laid  bare  until  y 
the  women  had  access  to  a  woman  in  authority 
armed  with  legal  powers  to  initiate  the  remedies. 
These  ills  afflicting  women  formed  in  some  respects 
a  parallel  to  the  earlier  though  grosser  abuse  of 
child  labour  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  recall  the  words  of  Mr.  Cooke-Taylor : 

"It  is  of  great  and  increasing  importance  that 
that  story  be  kept  in  memory;  that  it  should  never 
be  suffered  to  become  extinct;  as  a  pitiful  .  .  . 
warning  against  the  preposterous  doctrine  .  .  . 
that  human  affairs  can  be  entrusted  to  impulses  of 
mere  cupidity  without  shocking  and  degrading  con- 
sequences, "f  It  is  difficult  now,  even  for  the  Women 
Inspectors,  to  reconstruct  in  the  mind  the  barbarous 
and  grinding  conditions  that  they  were  called  to 
disclose  and  to  help  to  transform.  The  woman 
worker  was  "  subject  to  "  mechanical  power,  and  it 
needed  a  labour  of  love  to  help  her  to  free  herself. 

In  nothing  does  this  appear  more  clearly  than  in  the 
sphere  of  wages,  touched  on  in  the  following  chapter. 

*  "The  Jeopardy  of  a  Department,"  by  Gertrude  M. 
Tuekwell.  Published  by  the  Women's  Trade  Union 
League,  1897,  p.  7. 

f  "The  Modern  Factory  System,"  by  Whateley  Cooke- 
Taylor,  late  His  Majesty's  Superintending  Inspector  o£ 
Factories. 


CHAPTER  III 

WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  THE  TRUCK  ACTS ;    THE  PIECE- 
WORKER AND   HER  PAY 

"  Tell  me  what  shall  thy  wages  be  ?" 

Long  before  the  beginnings  of  the  modern  factory 
system,  and  centuries  before  the  idea  of  applying 
standard  requirements  for  health,  safety,  or  limita- 
tion of  hours  in  factories  and  workshops  had  arisen, 
Parliament  had  recognised  the  need  and  right  of 
the  worker  to  receive  full  payment  of  the  wages 
/he  had  agreed  to  work  for,  in  current  coin  of  the 
realm — "  intr  ug^_a_nd  la  wjuJUjnone  y . "  *  It  also 
recognised  "Lis  right  to  spend  those  wages  as  and 
where  it  best  suited  him. 

The  law  relating  to  Truck j  was  consolidated 
quite  early  in  the  growth  of  the  factory  system  by 
the  Act  of  1831.  This  Act,  and  the  Act  of  1887. 
which  first  brought  in  the  very  necessary  aid  of  the 
Factory  Inspector  to  enforce  its  provisions  and 
strengthened  the  law, J  are  still  in  force,  together 
with  the  Actof   1896.  which  first  regulate^  fines 

*  These  words  arc  in  a  statuto  of  Frhvnnrl  W. 

f  A  Franoo-gr(Vf  <°u  '^nrrl  mpiRrprig  hn^f.Qr  that  appeared 
in  a  statute  of  Georgc_L.  after  the  Act  of  Union.  Tho 
Act  of   1831   was  "^  to  prohibit  the  payment,   in  certain 

trades,  of  wages  in  goods  or  otherwise  than  in  current  coin 
if  tho  realm." 
X   Kvtonflcvl  a,t  thi.-i  (Iqhvf o  TrolainLalno. 
**^  58 


"  TRUE  AND  LAWFUL  MONEY  "    59 

and  various  deductions  from  wages,  making  them\ 
illegal  unless  in  pursuance  of  a  definite  agreement/ 
or  "  contract  "  with  every  worker  affected. 

In   1908  a  Departmental  Committee,  appointed 
by  the  Home  Secretary,  reported  on  the  great  need, 
then  generally  recognised,  for  amending  and  con- * 
solidating  these  Acts,  and  a  minority  of  the  Com-  ) 
mittee    recommended    entire    prohibition    of    fines/ 
and  deductions  regulated  by  the  Act  of  1896. 

In  the  same  year  there  was  more  than   usual 
activity,  with  markedly  successful  results,  on  the 
part  of  the  Women  Inspectors  in  investigating  and 
prosecuting  for  contraventions  of  the  Acts.     From 
about    1897  onwards  they  had  gradually  acquired 
a  unique  acquaintance  throughout  the  United  King- 
dom with  the  human  results  of  uncertain  and  low 
wages,  peculiarly  oppressive  to  women  and  girls,  by    . 
their  investigation  of  complaints,  by  long-drawn-out 
legal  proceedings,  by  special  enquiries  into  home- 
work, and  into  payments  of  wages  in  overvalued 
groceries  and  oth  p/r~|rpndfj  inlofQQd  of  rnftn"y      Of  a 
packet  of  tea  given  in  place  of  hard-earned  coin, 
the  outworker  would  say:  "  And  the  tea  indeed  it 
is  not  good,  it  is  not  worth  putting  water  on." 
"  A  pair  of  thin  elastic-sided  boots  which  consti-    , 
tuted  the  '  wages  '  paid  to  a  worker,  who,  according   J 
to  the  practice  of  the  country-side  (Donegal,  1897),  / 
generally  went  barefoot,  were  objects  of  longing  "/ 
to  the  Inspector  as  "  articles  of  evidence."* 

The   Women   Inspectors   have   also   had   carried 
to  the  High  Courts   of   England  and  Ireland  five  • 
out  of  the  six  appeals,  on  points  of  law  under  the  \ 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  p.  109. 


60     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

Truck  Acts,  taken  at  the  instance  of  the  Factory 
Department  since   1896.*     Facts  and  details  that 
came  out  at  their  prosecutions  in  police  and  sheriff 
courts  passed  into  the  public  press.     There,  and 
through  published  official  reports,  it  became  well 
known    in   Parliament   and   elsewhere    that   wages 
k  below  subsistence  level  afflicted  women  in  many 
v\factories,  as  well  as  in  homework.     Various  volun- 
tary committees  pressed  the  matter  forward,  and 
the  Inspectors'  evidence,  published  year  after  year 
in  Annual  Reports,  strengthened  the  Anti-Sweating 
TVWglPjRnt-  fr^m  ahqiitJJ^HJ^J^^     Public  opinion 
was  stirred  afresh  by  the  Sweated  Industries  Ex- 
hibition of   1906,    and  eyes  were  opened  to  evils 
almost  forgotten  since  the  work  and  report  of  the 
Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  in  1888-90. 
The  evidence  of  the  Women  Inspectors  given  to 
the  1908  Committee  on  Truck  was  extensive  as  to 
»'    the  evils  affecting  women  and  conclusive  as  to  the 
need  of  amendment  of  the  law.     In  the  same  year 
the   Select  Committee  on  Homework  referred  re- 
peatedly to  the  assistance  they  had  obtained  from 
"  so   experienced   and   competent   an   observer   as 
Miss  Squire,  of  the  Home  Office."!     The  passing 
[  of  the  Trade   Boards   Act  of    1909   followed  very 
\  shortly  on  their~RepoTt     ItTprbvided  for  payment 
\by  employers  of  a  minimum  rate  of  wages  "  ojejir 
of_all  deductions       in  certain  industries  specified 

*  Report  of  Committee  on  Truck,  1908,  vol.  i.,  appendix 
iv.,  Cd.  4442. 

f  Report   from   the   Select   Committee    on    Homework 
•ordered    by   the  House  of   Commons   to  be  printed  July 
22,  1908. 


EFFECT  OF  TRADE  BOARDS  ACT         61 

in  a  schedule  to  the  Act,  and  in  others  to  be  brought 
in  by  Provisional  Order  where  the  "  rate  of  wages 
prevailing  ...  is  exceptionally  low";  and  Trade 
Boards  were  set  up  for  the  fixing  of  such  minimum 
rates.  This  Act  provided  for  minimum  time  rates 
and  for  general  minimum  piece  rates,  and,  on  the 
whole,  has  secured  as  solid  a  general  assent  from 
the  community  as  did  the  Elizabethan  provision 
in  earlier  times  for  protection  of  the  poorest 
labourer  from  starvation  pay  "  both  in  times  of 
scarcity  and  in  times  of  plenty." 

The  Act  was  administered,  not  by  the  Factory 
Department  (as  was  proposed  in  1908  by  the  Select 
Committee  on  Homework),  but  by  the  Board  of 
Trade  (later  by  the  Ministry  of  Labour).  It  thus 
only  enters  into  the  scope  of  this  study  because  so 
closely  linked  with  the  pioneering  work  of  the 
Women  Inspectors  when  they  really  tested  the  Truck 
Acts  and  the  Section  in  the  Factory  Act  for  securing 
to  women  pieceworkers  (in  non-textile  industries)  S 
the  protection  of  written  "  particulars  "  of  their 
work  and  wages.  It  also  had  a  striking  effect  in 
steadily  sweeping  away  many  of  the  deductions 
from  low  wages  with  which  we  were  specially  con- 
cerned. The  beneficial  movement  was  carried\ 
decisively  forward  by  the  special  wages  conditions 
administratively  enforced  for  women  during  the 
War. 

The  fundamental  elements  in  wages  problems 
are  in  some  ways  simpler  and  homelier  for  every- 
one than  problems  of  scientific  hygiene  in  the 
factory.  Most  of  us  realise  very  well  how  much 
our  freedom  and  happiness  depend  on  having,  in 


\ 


62     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

our  recompense  for  labour,  a  margin  for  spending, 
above  what  is  just  necessary  to  keep  us  going,  and 
on  being  able  to  compute  definitely  from  week  to 
week  what  the  recompense  will  be.  We  do  not 
need  technical  knowledge  to  develop  insight  for 
that.  We  can  all  readily  grasp  the  truth  in  those 
words  of  Adam  Smith:  "  The  property  which  every 
man  has  in  his  own  labour,  as  it  is  the  original 
foundation  of  all  other  property  so  it  is  the  most 
sacred  and  inviolable,"  and  "  no  society  can  surely 
be  flourishing  and  happy  of  which  the  greater  part 
of  the  members  are  poor  and  miserable."  And 
thus,  when  the  miseries  of  fraudulent  payment  in 
goods  or  of  excessive  and  uncertain  deductions 
from  wages,  or  of  sweated  wages,  are  brought  out, 
it  is  clear  to  everyone  that  regulation  must  be 
attempted  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

As  regards  the  grosser  abuses  of  payment  in 
goods,  the  law  had  become  generally  effective  for 
the  principal  wage  earners  in  organised  factory 
industry  before  1893.  For  women  outside  the 
[factory  system,  these  forms  of  Truck  were  then 
knd  much  later  to  be  found  in  certain  homework 
industries  in  directions  to  be  considered  presently. 
And  in  the  least  organised  factory  industries  en- 
forced purchase  and  raffling  of  articles  "  damaged  " 
/in  process  of  manufacture,  and  many  oppressive 
tforms  of  deductions  and  charges  on  slender  wages, 
were  widespread. 

Although,  fortunately,  laws  relating  to  wages — 
that  is,  Txnck___Acts,  Particulars  Claug£+_JJrade 
Boards  Act — were  ancT  are  applicable  to  men  and 
women  alike,  it  is  evident  that,  until  strengthened 


SACRED  AND  INVIOLABLE  PROPERTY  63 

by  help  from  Inspectors  of  their  own  sex  in  the 
Factory  and  Trade  Boards  Departments,  and  by 
recent  development  of  their  own  powers  through 
leading  women  organisers,  women  have  proved  but  / 
poor  bargainers  for  themselves,  and  weak  in  secur-* 
ing  their  own  welfare  in  matters  of  wages.  This 
weakness  was,  no  doubt,  closely  linked  with  their  . 
artificial  exclusion  from  many  weUj3a^oMn^us*ries  j 
and"  processes  suitable  for  TEem,  whiclimlensified 
their  competition  for  available  employment.  The 
published  reports  of  the  Women  Factory  Inspectors 
down  to  1914  remain  an  historical  record  of  the 
depredations  on  their  wages  that  the  women  suf- 
fered, and  of  the  pitiful  smallness  of  their  average 
earnings — the  details  being,  as  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  later  improvements,  almost  stagger- 
ing. Their  "  property  in  their  own  labour,"  outside 
a  few  well-organised  industries  and  often  even  in 
fine-looking  factories  was,  when  we  began,  neither 
"  sacred  "  nor  "  inviolable,"  and,  indeed,  in  many 
places,  barely  existed.  Although  the  Women  In- 
spectors were  at  work  to  track  out  and  deal  with 
contraventions  in  "  hard  cases,"  yet  the  range  of 
area,  processes,  and  numbers  dealt  with  by  them 
in  factories,  workshops,  and  among  outworkers 
is  so  wide,  and  the  figures  were  so  carefully  com- 
pared with  those  given  by  manufacturers  them- 
selves, that  their  reports  make  a  decisive  addition 
to  the  evidence  contained  in  the  Board  of  Trade 
Wage  Census  of  1886  and  1906.  The  wage  levels 
for  women  in  their  chief  industries,  given  in  this 
census,  low  as  they  were,  were  undoubtedly  some- 
what higher  than  in  fact,  and  only  covered  returns 


64     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

from  the  firms  responding  to  an  invitation  to  dis- 
close information  in  their  wage  books.  Even  if 
the  average  wage  per  week  for  women  over  eighteen 
years  of  age  in  non-textile  industries  was,  as  indi- 
cated by  the  wage  census,  about  12s.  lid.,*  those 
of  an  immense  number  of  women  employed  inside 
the  factory  did  not  rise  above  7s.  to  8s.,  out  of 
which  came  deductions  for  disciplinary  fines, 
charges  for  cotton,  needles,  etc.,  use  of  power, 
standing-room,  cleaning  of  the  factory,  damage, 
or  purchase  of  damaged  articles,  hospitals,  supply 
of  hot  water  for  tea ;  so  that  for  many  young  women 
5s.  to  6s.  a  week  was  nearer  the  mark.  To  such 
numerous  workers  information  that  an  average 
of  12s.  to  14s.  was  paid  to  women  in  their  industry 
would  have  meant  nothing.  It  was  their  own 
individual  daily  or  weekly  wage  that  was  the  reality 
to  them.  The  Act  of  1896  required,  as  already  said, 
that  a  definite  contract  must  be  made  by  any  em- 
ployer with  his  workers  before  deductions  could  be 
made  from  wages;  other  terms  could  be  specified 
in  a  notice  affixed  in  the  workplace.  Among  other 
conditions  the  deductions  had  to  be  fair  and  reason- 
able, the  acts  or  omissions  which  entailed  a  deduc- 
tion had  to  be  specified  in  the  contract,  and  par- 
ticulars of  any  deduction  actually  imposed  had  to 
be  given  to  the  worker  at  the  time.  Even  when 
the  Inspector  had  severely  pruned  the  contract, 
deductions  for  such  things  as  gas,  needles,  sweeping, 
sick  clubs,  made  a  serious  inroad;  a  rate  of  6s.  6d. 

*  Compare  figures  given  in  "  Lj^oin1  onfl  ('np'tnl  aft^r 
the  Wa^'  edited  by  S^J—Ghapmaii,  C.B.E.,  iv.,  p.  80. 
London,  John  Murray,  1918. 


LOW  WAGES  AND  MANY  DEDUCTIONS   65 

would  emerge  as  5s.  5d.,  of  7s.  6d.  as  6s.  5d.,  of  12s. 
as  9s.  9d.  for  a  week's  work  that  might  legally  be 
sixty  hours.* 

"  Girls'  wages  are  as  a  rule  so  pitiably  low  as  to 
leave  no  margin,"  said  Miss  Squire  in  1898,  "  for^ 
making  good  any  damage  to  work  entrusted  t( 
them,  while  the  rapidity  necessary  in  order  to  reaclj 
the  standard  required  of  workers — paid  by  thf 
quantity  turned  out — increases  the  risk  of  damage.' 

In  that  year  a  letter  reached  me  from  the  Leader 
of  a  Factory  Girls'  Club  in  London  about  one  of 
its  members,  employed  in  decorated  sheet  metal 
work,  who  "  looked  thoroughly  miserable  and  over- 
worked." The  girl  had  been  set  to  work,  at  8s;v 
a  week,  on  a  heavy  "  grooving  "  machine  in  place 
of  a  man  paid  28s.  a  week.  A  visit  from  the  Irf^ 
spectors  was  desired,  and  the  girl  said  they  would 
find  "  plenty  things  to  find  fault  with."  Although 
attention  was  promptly  and  closely  applied  to  these 
other  things,  I  had  to  explain  to  the  Club  Leader 
that  the  Factory  Inspector  was  not  concerned  with 
even  the  slenderest  wages,  except  in  so  far  as  touched 
by  the  Truck  Acts,  unless  the  pieceworkers  should 
desire  to  submit  a  claim  for  extension  to  them  of  the 
Particulars  Clause  in  the  Factory  Act. 

In  the  same  year  an  instance  of  deductions  for 
short  quantity  from  girls  soldering  tins  containing 
perishable  goods,  being  engaged,  not  on  piecework, 
but  on  a  fixed  weekly  wage,  again  illustrates  both 
the  smallness  of  wages  and  the  subjection  to  heavy 
pressure.  Here  the  girls  rarely  (some  never) 
received  full  wage,    Id.  being  deducted  for  every 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  p.  185. 


66     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

ten  trays  (twenty-four  tins  on  each)  short  of  the 
total  required  daily,  which  was  190  trays  containing 
4,560  tins.  The  girls  complained  that  this  total 
exceeded  what  their  best  efforts  could  produce. 
"It  is  slavery.  We  do  not  dawdle.  We  are  all 
for  scrambling  for  fear  of  losing  our  money."  Miss 
Squire  examined  the  books  for  eleven  workers 
during  five  weeks,  and  none  reached  the  total  re- 
quired, although  two  once  came  within  two  trays 
of  it.  Rewards  were  given  for  care  and  good  work 
and  were  set  off  against  "  short  quantity."  Thus 
from  a  wage  of  8s.  9d.,  300  trays  being  declared  short, 
2s.  6d.  was  deducted,  and  Is.  added  for  good  work, 
resulting  in  a  net  wage  of  7s.  3d.  The  Inspector 
found  in  another  factory  under  the  same  company 
a  woman  whose  wages  were  raised  for  good  work, 
who  ordinarily  sealed  120  to  140  trays  daily,  and 
could  do  170  trays  at  a  push.  Thus  the  deductions 
in  the  first  factory  were  manifestly  unfair  and  they 
were  refunded  after  the  investigation.  The  manager 
subsequently  informed  the  Inspector  that  there  was 
no  falling  off  in  number  of  tins  sealed  by  the  girls.* 
•  In  a  biscuit  factory  labellers,  putting  labels  on 
'four  sides  and  the  top  of  a  tin,  were  paid  at  the  rate 
of  Id.  for  twelve  tins;  for  any  one  label  damaged, 
Id.  was  deducted,  so  that  twelve  tins  would  then 
be  labelled  for  nothing. f 

The  Women  Inspectors  were  driven  to  realise  by 
such  experiences  that  not  merely  was  starvation 
pay  for  women  and  girls  prevalent  in  many  in- 
stances,   but    that    the    whole    outlook    of    many 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  p.  112. 
t  Ibid.,  1901,  p.  190. 


REDUCTION  OF  PIECE  RATES  67 

employers  on  their  standard  and  maximum  wages 
for  women  was  darkened,  and  these  employers  had 
almost  uncontrolled  power  to  fix  and  alter  rates 
for  unorganised   workers.     As   late   as  the  middle 
of    1914    Miss    Whitworth    (Mrs.    Drury),    taking 
evidence   for   a   prosecution,    found   that   a   piece- 
worker,  without  the  required  written  particulars, 
was  actually  paid  for  some  work  in  the  week  of 
enquiry,  without  notice,  less  than  she  was  paid  in 
the  previous  week  for  the  same  work.     The  fore- 
man's explanation  was:  "What  can  one  do,  whenf 
a  girl  is  earning  as  much  as  15s.  a  week,  but  loweij 
the  piece  rate."*     This  was  a  not  unusual  attitude 
throughout   our  experience  up  to  the  war   period. 
The  fact  of  its  existence  and  the  consequences  on 
the  output  of  the  workgirl — faced  with  the  alterv 
natives  of  earning  the  same  sum  whether  on  a  higher\ 
or  a  lower  piece  rate,  and  naturally  choosing  the  j 
former — may  be  well  seen  in  Mr.  R.  H.  Tawney'sy 
"  Minimum  Rates  in  the  Tailoring  Trade. "f 

Of  wholesale  clothing  factories  in  Colchester,  in 
1908,  a  local  leading  manufacturer  told  an  Inspector 
that  he  thought  7s.  to  8s.  would  be  the  average 
wage  of  the  girls  employed,  and  her  "  own  observa- 
tions confirmed  this.  Board  and  lodging  cost  7s.  j 
a  week  at  the  lowest,  so  it  is  obviously  impossible 
for  a  girl  to  live  unless  she  is  at  home. "J  It  is 
noteworthy  how  often  this  average  appeared  to 
rule  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  as  one  turns 
over  many  Annual  Reports. 

*  Ibid.,  1914,  p.  49. 

|  Op.  cit.  (1915,  G.  Bell  and  Sons),  p.  127. 
%  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1908,  p.  155. 

6 


68     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

The  remarkable  thing  about  this  low  and  limited 
view  "f  the  m1^  "f  n  w^mpnVjw^rk,  which  ruled* 
so  generally  as  seriously  to  ri^pvoCa  ]^r  own  estimates 
of  its  value,  was  that  a  sudden  alteration  in  the 
valuation  occurred  immediately  there  was  any 
failure  in  punctuality  of  attendance,  or  quantity 
and  quality  of  output.  And  yet,  sometimes,  outside 
public  opinion,  as  reflected  in  the  decision  of  a 
police  court  magistrate  or  a  sheriff,  supported  the 
two  apparently  incompatible  estimates. 

In  a  case  taken  into  court  in  South  London,  where 
the  contract  for  deductions  for  time  lost  rendered 
the  worker  liable  to  a  fine  of  Id.  a  minute  lost,  the 
information  was  dismissed  on  the  ground  that  the 
contract  was  not  in  general  unfairly  enforced, 
although  it  was  shown  that  one  worker  earning  6s. 
a  week  was  fined  5d.  for  five  minutes  lost  and 
another  4d.  for  four  minutes  lost.  While  the  girls 
were  at  work  the  service  was  valued  at  l|d.  an 
hour,  in  a  week  of  sixty  hours'  work.*  In  a  South 
London  factory,  where  fining  was  at  the  rate  of 
Id.  for  any  time  lost  up  to  five  minutes,  and  2d. 
for  more  than  five  minutes,  276  girls  out  of  500 
were  fined  sums  from  4d.  to  8d.,  and  the  total 
amount  collected  by  the  firm  in  this  way  was  £156 
in  a  year.  Incidentally  punctuality  was  not  secured 
here  by  docking  the  low  and  hardly  earned  wages 
of  the  girls.  In  many  cases  the  attention  drawn 
to  the  matter  by  Inspectors  induced  employers  to 
refund  deductions  that  should  never  have  been 
made.  Heads  of  firms  often  gave  far  too  little 
personal  care  and  attention  to  safeguarding  their 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  p.  161. 


THE  FINING  SYSTEM  69 

own  employees  from  injustice.*  In  numerous 
instances  where,  after  careful  investigation  in  a 
factory  by  the  Inspector  of  the  whole  effects  of  the 
fining  system,  the  matter  was  once  fully  brought 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  head  of  a  firm,  voluntary 
abolition  of  the  system  followed.  Where  it  was 
abandoned  in  favour  of  better  methods  of  discipline, 
return  to  the  system  was  unknown.  The  gain  in 
efficiency  of  management  was  well  attested  by 
such  employers  in  their  evidence  to  the  Committee 
on  Truck  in  1908.f 

A  contrast  appeared  frequently  between  the 
estimate  of  value  put  into  an  article  by  labour 
expended  on  it,  and  of  the  worker's  share  in  respon- 
sibility for  loss  occasioned  by  any  accidental  slip  of 
the  fast-moving  fingers.  In  a  rubber  tyre  factory, 
for  example,  where  the  outer  case  of  the  rubber 
tyre  was  trimmed — i.e.,  cut  neatly  along  the  edges — 
by  girls,  at  the  rate  of  l^d.  a  dozen  cases,  a  fine 
of  Id.  was  imposed  for  each  case  damaged  by  the 
edge  being  unevenly  cut  or  snipped.  The  loss  to 
the  employer  was  indeed  reckoned  as  2s.  6d. ;  the 
loss  to  the  worker,  although  only  Id.,  equalled 
four-fifths  of  what  she  could  earn  in  an  hour's 
work  .J  In  a  safety-pin  factory  in  the  West  of 
England,  where  only  good  work  was  paid  for  and 
some  waste  unavoidable — material  being  "  weighed 
out  "  in  lots  of  100  gross  or  50  gross,  and  weighed 

*  Ibid.,  1912,  p.  157. 

f  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Truck,  1908,  Cd.  4442. 
QQ.  7716-8,  8192,  8204,  8234,  17892,  etc.,  and  Report,  vol.  i., 
p.  25. 

X  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  p.  185. 


J 


70     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

again  when  brought  in — some  exceptionally  bad 
deductions  were  found.  A  girl  who  had  to  cap 
50  gross  of  pins  for  Is.  3d.  was  told  when  she 
brought  the  lot  in  that  she  was  f  pound  short,  and 
2s.  3|d.  was  deducted  from  her  weekly  wage  of 
5s.  7d.  A  married  woman  bringing  in  84  gross 
of  good  pins  out  of  100  gross  booked  to  her,  was 
charged  2s.  for  21  pounds  short  in  the  metal,  and 
instead  of  receiving  Is.  ll|d.  for  the  84  gross  pins, 
admittedly  well  capped,  received  her  pay  envelope 
empty — with  a  note  on  it  that  she  owed  Jd.  Here 
the  firm,  aroused  by  the  miserable  conditions 
brought  to  light  by  the  Inspector,  voluntarily 
returned  all  deductions,  exceeding  5  per  cent,  off 
any  weekly  wage  to  the  workers  for  the  whole  year, 
and  arranged  for  piecework  books  with  careful 
entries  and  for  regular  "  check-weighing  "  by  the 
workers. 

The  number  of  instances  is  astounding  where,  by 
the  aid  of  the  records  required  by  the  Truck  Act 
of  1896,  Inspectors  were  able  to  track  out  pre- 
posterous, long-standing  "  debts  "  of  workgirls  to 
their  employers  for  "  damages  "  which  they  could 
not  test  or  verify  themselves,  in  shirt  and  collar 
and  other  clothing  trades,  in  pen  factories,  and 
other  small  metal  works;  the  burden  of  the  system 
can  only  be  grasped  by  a  careful  study  of  details 
in  numerous  Annual  Reports.  The  difficulties  of 
successful  prosecutions  in  many  bad  cases  are 
touched  on  in  Chapter  VI.  on  legal  work.  "  There 
were  cases  in  which  the  worker  had  remained  in 
debt  for  as  long  as  eighteen  months  on  a  single 
batch  of  collars  machined,  gradually  paying  off  by 


REMEDYING  FINES  71 

such  instalments  as  her  weekly  wage  of  7s.  to  10s. 
would  bear."* 

In  an  Irish  linen-weaving  factory  that  I  visited 
with  Miss  Martindale  in  1911  in  the  course  of  long 
negotiations  with  the  Manufacturers'  Association, 
carried  on  in  the  hope  of  securing  voluntary  im- 
provements in  harsh  contracts  regarding  damaged 
work,  we  found  that  65-76  per  cent,  of  the  weavers 
were  fined  an  average  of  8fd.  in  one  recent  week, 
and  60-5  per  cent.,  an  average  of  7|d.,  in  another 
week,  six  months  earlier.  The  highest  gross  average 
wage  was  7s.  2fd.,  and  the  average  net  wage, 
including  a  so-called  time  bonus,  was  5s.  8|d.  The 
mill  was  making  little  or  no  profit,  and,  as  I  observed 
at  the  time,  I  "  never  had  so  strong  an  illustration 
of  the  truth  that  thriving  manufacture_cannot  be 
built  up  onjite  labour  of  depressed  and  half-starved 
workers."  In  spite  of  warning,  the  percentage  of 
workers  fined  there  rose  yet  higher,  and  the  firm 
was  told  that  unless  there  was  immediate  reform 
proceedings  must  follow.  Here  and  elsewhere  I 
pressed  for  the  institution  of  method  and  application 
of  skill  in  training  the  workers,  and  in  this  case  it 
was  effectually  established  with  results  most  satis- 
factory to  the  management,  while  the  number  of 
workers  fined  fell  to  6-9  per  cent.  In  another 
weaving  shed,  where  33  per  cent,  were  fined  weekly 
for  cloth  faults,  after  an  Inspector's  visit  all  fines 
were  abolished  "  as  an  experiment."  The  manager 
in  due  course  wrote  that  it  was  an  unqualified  success, 
but  that  he  did  not  wish  his  competitors  to  know, 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1902,  p.  190. 


72     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

as    it    gave    him    an    advantage    in  getting  good 
weavers.* 

A  great  evil,  particularly  in  connection  with 
clothing  factories,  developed  out  of  charges  for 
damaged  work,  in  "  raffling  "  in  order  to  escape 
the  burden  of  practically  enforced  purchase  by  the 
\  workers  of  garments  that  they  were  alleged  to  have 
Vlamaged.  Even  in  1898  factories  were  found 
,'Vhere  this  practice  had  been  reduced  to  a  regular 
system.  In  one  factory  every  worker  was  required 
^tijr  expected  to  pay  Id.  a  week  to  the  foreman 
towards  a  fund  for  paying  back  to  the  employee 
the  amount  deducted  from  her  wages  for  damaged 
work,  receiving  in  return  a  ticket  for  the  raffle  by 
which  damaged  articles  were  disposed  of  week  by 
week.  Three  successful  prosecutions,  taken  by 
Miss  Squire  in  1905,  did  something  to  check  the 
growth  of  this  practice  in  Leeds.  In  each  case  the 
magistrate  severely  censured  the  defendants.!  I11 
1906  it  was  found  to  be  extensively  prevalent  in 
Manchester  "  making-up  "  factories.  "  Leaving 
aside,"  said  Miss  Paterson,  "...  the  effect  on 
character  of  gambling  even  to  so  slight  an  extent, 
I  think  it  tends  to  make  workers  careless  in  their 
work;  to  make  foremen  and  employers  careless 
about  training  good  workers,  and  indifferent  to 
fairness  when  they  assess  damage. "J  Although 
compulsory  purchase  by  the  worker  of  damaged 
work,  illegal  as  it  was,  decreased,  it  was  far  more 
difficult  to  repress  the  insidious  practice  of  "  giving  " 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,   1911,  p.  1G2;  and 
1914,  p.  50. 
t  Ibid.,  1905,  p.  328.  %  Ibid.,  1906,  p.  239. 


DAMAGED  WORK  AND  RAFFLES        73 

the  worker  or  "  allowing  her  "  to  take  damaged 
work,  for  which  she  had  a  deduction  made  from 
her  wages.  The  better  employers  agreed  with  the 
Inspector  in  prohibiting  anything  of  the  kind  in 
their  works. 

This  old  evil,  of  compulsory  purchase,  bv^  the 
worker  o£  rjg.inp.gfid  products  of  her  industry,  the 
damage  being  due,  not  only  to  lack  of  care,  but 
sometimes  to  accident,  sometimes  to  defective 
material  or  implements,  sometimes  to  overpressure 
or  defective  training  of  the  worker,  appeared  in 
even  the  highly  organised  and  relatively  well-paid 
cotton  trade,  which  had  at  its  own  instance  been 
exempted  from  the  scope  of  the  Truck  Act  of  1896. 
Some  girls  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  left  a  cotton 
factory  in  1901  owing  to  heavy  fines  for  faults  in 
the  cloth.  On  claiming  arrears  of  wages  due,  they 
were  each  shown  a  piece  of  cloth  and  told  they 
must  take  the  damaged  pieces  in  lieu  of  wages. 
"...  Finding  they  could  make  no  other  terms, 
they  said  they  would  take  time  to  consider,"  and 
meanwhile  wrote  to  the  Inspector,  Miss  Squire.  She 
accompanied  them  in  the  following  week  to  the 
factory  office,  "  and  the  wages  were  paid  over  in 
coin,  the  employer  finding  that  the  Truck  Act,  1831, 
was  not  to  be  lightly  set  aside."* 

Deductions  for  motive  power,  used  in  the  manu- 
facturing process,  were  often  found  in  our  earlier 
years  of  inspection,  but  they  had  already  begun 
to  die  out,  and,  I  think,  have  long  since  done  so 
generally.  They  were  mainly  a  survival  from  the 
time  of  transition  from  handicraft  to  power-driven 

*  Ibid.,  1901,  p.  191. 


74     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

industry,  and  sometimes  reflected  the  hardness  of 
those  days — as  when  they  covered  not  only  cost 
of  fuel  and  repairs,  but  wages  also  of  the  man  who 
attended  the  engine.  I  made  a  calculation  in  the 
case  of  some  Lancashire  clothing  factories  in  1897-98 
that  payment  by  the  worker  of  Id.  in  the  Is.  earned, 
or  Is.  weekly  if  wages  rose  above  9s.,  brought  in 
enough  to  run  the  whole  power  at  the  workers' 
expense,  ownership  of  the  engine  remaining  with 
the  occupier.  Charges  or  deductions  for  cleaning 
the  factory,  or  parts  of  it,  such  as  lavatories,  were 
also  a  survival  from  other  days  when  the  worker 
worked  in  his  own  domestic  workshop;  severe 
scrutiny  by  the  Inspector  of  many  wage  contracts, 
and  of  local  practices  that  were  unrecorded  in  any 
jformal  notice,  was  necessary  to  free  the  worker 
urom  the  burden  of  carrying  the  occupier's  legal 
responsibility  for  keeping  his  factory  in  a  cleanly 
condition.  Levies  of  Id.  a  week  on  every  worker 
in  a  large  factory  would  sometimes  produce  more 
than  the  wage  of  a  good  charwoman  in  places 
where  there  was  not  much  evidence  of  her  activity. 
Even  in  1901  the  prosecution  of  a  firm  for  employing 
women  in  the  dinner  hour  gave  publicity,  during 
the  hearing,  to  the  details  of  how  women  and  girls 
supplied  gratis,  the  labour,  cloths,  buckets,  etc., 
necessary  to  enable  the  occupiers  of  a  world-famed 
textile  factoiy  to  keep  it  in  the  cleanly  state  required 
by  the  Acts.  The  conviction  did  much  to  "  shift 
the  burden  on  to  the  right  shoulders."* 

The    odd    topsy-turvy    way   in    which    law    and 
administration    reacted    in    the    difficult    work    of 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1901,  p.  190. 


INCONGRUITIES  75 

applying  the  Truck  Act  was  seen  by  Miss  Martin- 
dale  in  a  procession  of  workers  who  paraded  the 
streets  of  Belfast  in  1911  carrying  boards  on  which 
stood  in  large  letters  the  words:  "Down  with  the 
Truck  Acts."  This  followed  our  long  negotiations 
with  the  Association  of  Manufacturers  (already 
referred  to)  in  an  endeavour  to  secure  milder  con- 
tracts regarding  deductions  for  damage.  The 
meagre  results  had  been  embodied,  with  other 
rules  over  which  we  had  no  control,  in  a  notice 
(drafted  by  the  lawyers  to  the  Association),  a  copy 
of  which  was  handed  to  each  worker.  The  notices 
were  headed  by  the  words:  "  The  Truck  Act,  1896, 
requires  that  a  copy  of  the  following  terms  and  con- 
ditions should  be  handed  to  every  worker."  The 
"  other  rules  "  included  such  conditions  as  instant 
dismissal  of  a  worker  when,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
employer,  manager,  or  overlooker,  she  had  been 
guilty  of  certain  acts  or  defaults,  and  discharge  of 
workers  in  any  department  without  notice  or  com- 
pensation if  any  of  the  workers  in  the  factory  strike 
or  decline  to  work.  This  blending  of  incompatible 
terms  could  not  be  prevented  by  legal  process  with- 
out amendment  of  the  Act. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  passing  of  the  Truck  Act, 
1887,  and  even  later,  a  common  opinion  held  that 
deductions  from  wages  in  respect  of  fines  were  r 
rendered  illegal  by  the  Act  of  1831,  through  its 
provision  that  the  entire  wages  were  to  be  paid  in 
coin.  The  important  decision  in  Redgrave  v.  Kelly 
(1889),  however,  established  a  different  conclusion, 
and  left  it  so  that  the  question  of  the  reasonableness 
of  fines  could  not  be  raised  under  that  Act.     It  was 


i 


76     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

\chiefly  against  uncertainty  and  unreasonableness 
m»  such  fines  that  the  Act  of  1896  was  aimed. 
Among  the  reactions  from  the  very  considerable, 
though  incomplete,  degree  of  control  introduced  by 
this  Act  came  the  development,  especially  in  Irish 
textile  factories,  of  a  so-called  "  bonus  "  system, 
the  real  meaning  of  which  was  in  nuTny*msTa*nces 
a  desire  to  "  keep  clear  "  of  that  Act.  It  appeared 
in  amounts  varying  from  5  to  20  per  cent,  of  the 
wage  in  many  and  subtle  forms;  for  time-keeping, 
for  output  and  equality  of  piecework,  and  for 
amount  of  wages  earned  in  the  week.  Although 
the  bonus  seldom  seemed  to  raise  the  average  wage 
above  the  local  level,  it  was  treated  by  the  employer 
as  a  kind  of  gift,  over  and  above  wages,  and  the 
whole  or  part  was  liable  to  be  withheld,  in  addition 
to  imposing  any  specific  fine  mentioned  in  the  con- 
tract or  a  deduction  for  time  lost.  In  a  case 
carried  from  Petty  Sessions  to  the  High  Court  in 
Ireland,  Deane  v.  Wilson,  a  weaver  lost  2s.  4d.  out 
of  a  weekly  wage  of  10s.  for  a  single  small  unpunc- 
tuality.  Arriving  thus  at  the  mill  a  few  minutes 
late,  she  was  locked  out  for  a  quarter  of  the  day 
and  forfeited  her  "  bonus  "  of  2s.  in  addition  to  the 
quarter  time  lost,  reckoned  as  4d.  The  High  Court 
confirmed  the  decision  of  the  magistrates  to  dismiss 
the  summons,  on  the  ground  that  the  2s.  bonus  could 
not  be  computed  as  wages,  and  that  therefore  no 
fine  was  inflicted. 

The  Committee  on  Truck,  1908,  decided  that  the 
bonus  system  was  open  to  grave  abuse,  and  on  the 
evidence  placed  before  them  believed  that  it  was 
abused.     They  made  certain  recommendations  for 


THE  BONUS  SYSTEM  77 

its  control  through  empowering  a  court  "  after 
considering  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  to 
decide  whether  the  bonus  is  used  by  the  employeri 
as  a  means  of  evading  the  requirements  of  the! 
statute,  and,  in  the  event  of  deciding  that  it  is  so' 
used,  to  convict  the  employer."*  I  confess  that  it 
appears  to  me  that  if  such  a  clause  had  stood  in  the 
Act  it  would  not  have  altered  the  decision  in  Deane 
v.  Wilson.  Magistrates  and  Judges  alike  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  the  Truck  Act  did  not  provide 
a  remedy  for  a  reduction  by  2s.  4d.  of  a  gross  pay- 
ment of  10s.  for  a  week's  skilled  work  (which  10s. 
was  regularly  given  to  the  wage  earner  if  no  unpunc- 
tuality  occurred).  The  reduction  left  the  wage 
earner  with  7s.  8d.  net  for  a  week  in  which  she  only 
lost  a  few  minutes  by  her  own  lateness.  The 
recommendation  of  the  Minority  Report  of  the 
Truck  Committee  "  that  the  bonus  system  should 
be  prohibited  by  law  "  would  hardly  solve  the 
difficulty.  Extra  rewards  to  workers  for  good  work 
could  never  be  effectually  prohibited  by  law.  The* 
real  problem  is  to  assure  to  the  worker  a  secure,  net  1 
minimum  wage,  and  to  defeat  evasion  by  unreason- 
able  orlinjust  employers. f 

The  charges  upon  wages  above  considered  have\ 
been  taken  first — although  not  the  earliest  form  of 
Truck — because  they  were  characteristic  of  the 
factory  system  and  specially  harassing  to  large 
numbers  of  women  in  the  period  from  1893  to  1914, 
before  great  changes  were  brought  by  the  War. 

*  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Truck,  1908,  vol.  i.,  pp.  28, 89. 
t  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  p.  110;  1906, 
p.  240;  1908,  p.  160. 


78       WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

j  Payment  in  "  unprofitable  wares  "  instead  of  in 
'/lawful  money  "  mainly  troubled  unorganised 
yactory  operatives  during  the  transition  from  handi- 
^Cvsiit  industry  to  mass  production.  Truck — that  is, 
in  its  original  sense — survived  in  our  official  ex- 
perience, and  called  for  our  intensified  enquiry  and 
action  among  outworkers  in  rural  districts:  in 
Cornwall  and  Somerset,  over  wide  areas  in  Ireland, 
and  among  knitters  in  Shetland.  From  these 
directions  complaints  flowed  in  upon  the  Women 
Inspectors,  keeping  them  absorbed  for  many  months 
in  activities  that  made  them,  for  the  time,  almost 
anything  but  Factory  Inspectors.  They  led  us 
into  almost  incredible  experiences*  until  eventually 
various  legal  decisions  made  it  plain  that  any  out- 
worker who  was  not  under  an  express  contract 
personally  to  execute  the  manual  work,  however 
poor  or  however  clearly  in  need  of  protection,  was 
outside  the  Truck  Acts. 

Two    ancient    forms    of    oppressive    "  agreement 
.  .  .  understanding  ...  or  arrangement  .  .  .  direct 
or  indirect  "  prohibited  by  law,f  continued,  how- 
ever,  in  our  time  to  trouble  ill-organised  factory 
k\  orkers,  irregular  charges  for  rent,  and  compulsory 
'expenditure  of  wages  at  an  employer's  shop. 

"  The  people  say  it  was  a  charity  for  you  to  stop 
the  checks,  but  it  would  be  a  greater  charity  if  you 
would  stop  the  rents  being  kept  off  the  workers." 
"  If  the  Inspector  would  look  after  shopkeepers 
giving  out  work  and  making  the  workers  take  goods 
instead  of  money,  I  think  she  would  be  doing  a 
service  to  the  poor."  Both  these  complaints  have 
*  See  below,  Chapter  VI.  t  Truck  Act,  1831,  sect.  25. 


DEDUCTIONS  FOR  RENT  79 

the  vivid,  Irish  ring,  but  they  expressed  the  sore 
needs  of  many  a  worker,  and  not  only  in  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland.  As  regards  deductions  for 
rent,  without  a  shadow  of  a  legal  right,  no  reported 
instance  is  worse  than  that  in  a  lucifer  match 
factory  in  England  in  1898,  followed  by  prosecution 
and  fine,  where,  in  absence  of  any  contract,  the 
employer  was  taking  nearly  the  whole  earnings  of 
a  half-starved  young  girl  worker  for  accumulated 
and  unrecorded  rent,  unpaid  by  her  father  during 
a  long  epidemic  of  smallpox.*  Another  instance 
nearly  as  bad  was  found  in  a  factory  in  a  great 
textile  district  where,  without  rent-book  or  any 
form  of  contract  (which  in  any  case  could  not  have 
been  legalised),  any  wife  or  daughter  engaged  on 
piecework  was  liable  to  receive  her  earnings  reduced 
by  quite  undefined  amounts,  said  to  be  rent  due 
from  husband  or  father.  The  mere  fact  that  the 
mill  was  sometimes  "  standing  "  added  to  the 
uncertainty  of  the  position;  in  one  case  successfully 
taken  into  court,  the  employer's  ledger  showed 
17s.  l|d.  deducted  for  rent  in  six  weeks  for  a  cottage 
rented  at  2s.  a  week.f  The  Irish  complainant 
(living  in  a  house  owned  by  his  employer)  was, 
however,  concerned  far  more  with  insecurity  of 
tenure  and  with  the  feature  that  "  if  you  get  dis- 
missed out  of  your  employment  they  won't  give 
you  any  money  (wages)  till  the  house  is  empty." 
Uncertainty  about  the  poorest  roof  over  his  head, 
being  his  home,  was  to  the  Irish  peasant  yet  worse 
than  insecurity  of  employment. 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  p.  182. 
t  Ibid.,  1902,"  p.  191. 


80     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

Miss  Martindale  sometimes  found  dressmakers 
employed  in  Irish  country  towns  who  "  lived-in," 
receiving  their  wages  only  once  a  year,  who  were 
obliged  to  obtain  articles  on  credit  from  their 
employers,  getting  seriously  in  debt  to  them.  She 
also  found  hand-spinners  and  weavers  in  the  tweed 
industry  paid  in  exorbitantly  priced  draperies  and 
groceries;  a  complainant,  telling  how  a  girl's  wages 
were  pledged  by  her  father  to  a  rich  shopkeeper  for 
five  years  for  the  paying-off  of  his  debts,  described 
the  girl  as  "  sold  "  to  her  employer.  The  remark 
made  to  Miss  Martindale  by  a  man  who  had  very 
special  opportunities  of  knowing  the  poorer  country 
districts  of  Ireland,  that  "  the  people  are  born  in 
debt,  die  in  debt,  and  live  in  bonctage,^  struclHher 
in  the  year  1 907  as"""  undoubtedly  only  too  true."* 

In  few  places  could  the  framework  of  bondage 
be  more  complete  than  in  a  certain  "  townland," 
where  the  owner  of  the  principal  shop  and  public - 
house  was  also  the  owner  of  the  flax-fields  and  flax 
scutch  mill,  and  employer  of  many  of  the  inhabitants. 
The  women  working  for  wages  in  the  mill  seldom 
received  coin;  one  girl,  whose  father  and  sister 
were  dependent  on  the  same  employer,  received 
none  during  a  whole  winter.  Dealing  at  the  shop 
was  practically  a  condition  of  employment. f  A 
successful  prosecution  in  1907,  upheld  on  appeal 
against  conviction  to  Quarter  Sessions,  brought 
in  many  communications  of  similar  cases  to  Miss 
Martindale,  as  did  the  well-known  earlier  prosecution 
by  Miss  Deane  at  Ardara  in  1898,  and  several  more 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1907,  p.  200. 
t  Ibid.,  1907,  p.  200. 


IRISH  PAYMENTS  IN  KIND  81 

by  Miss  Squire  in  Dungloe  and  neighbouring  dis- 
tricts, which  led  in  1900  to  her  hard-fought  appeals 
to  the  High  Court,  touched  on  in  Chapter  VI.  These 
ladies  were  indeed  all  the  "  petticoated  Inspectors  " 
of  whom  a  well-known  Irish  Q.C.  declared  at  the 
hearing  of  an  appeal  in  June,  1900,  that  there  was 
"  an  army  squatted  around  Dungloe,  watching 
every  little  industry  and  striving  to  throttle  them."* 
Many  of  the  difficulties  that  the  Inspectors  had 
to  encounter  in  remote  country  districts,  in  their 
endeavour  to  scotch  or  root  out  the  habit  of  paying 
in  kind  or  in  tickets  usable  instead  of  coin  at  a 
particular  shop,  were  not  of  legal  interpretation. 
They  were  largely  of  local  circumstances.  A  fort- 
night's residence  in  1899  in  a  lovely  district  of 
county  Donegal  enabled  me,  beyond  my  expecta- 
tions, to  gauge  the  character  of  these  practices.  The 
open  friendliness  shown  by  the  peasant  woman  and 
car-drivers  to  an  English  visitor  showed  me  some  of 
the  essential  factors  of  the  situation.  There  was  a 
manifest  sense  of  security  among  the  law-breakers, 
on  the  alert  to  conceal  all  traces  of  their  methods 
of  payment  since  the  £44  penalty  secured  against  a 
shopkeeping  middlewoman  by  Miss  Deane  in  1898. 
In  their  shops,  their  inns,  their  ownership  of  cars, 
they  represented  the  wealth  and  carrying  power  of 
the  local  community;  in  their  connections  through 
marriage  with  the  priests'  and  magistrates'  families, 
and  sometimes  even  their  position  as  magistrates, 
they  represented  the  order  of  the  community.  It 
was  possible  for  me  to  ascertain,  beyond  doubt, 
that   not   only   outworkers,   but   also   masons   and 

*  The  Donegal  Vindicator,  June  29,  1900. 


82     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

road  workers,  were  being  paujfortheir  work  mainly 
(and  sometimes  wholly)  in  p;oods  estiinaT^a  abo_ve 
their  real  value;  it  was  a  long  work  of  patient  skill 
to  establish  particular  cases  in  court,  and  to  Miss 
Squire  I  left  this  part  of  our  task.  I  could  see 
carts  laden  with  yarn  and  groceries  that  drove  out 
for  miles  round  the  country  and  that  brought  back 
knitted  hose;  the  difficulty  was  to  be  on  a  spot 
out  in  the  country,  or  in  a  shop,  at  the  exact  moment 
to  see  the  transactions.  "  To  be  an  eye-witness," 
said  Miss  Squire,  "  of  such  payment  is  almost 
impossible,  for  that  it  is  illegal  is  well  known;  and 
immediately  a  stranger  enters  a  shop  all  trans- 
actions cease.  Baffled  frequently,  I  succeeded  on 
one  occasion,  by  a  carefully-planned  stratagem  .  .  . 
and  saw  the  socks  handed  over  the  counter,  yarn 
for  fresh  socks  given  out,  and  packets  of  tea  and 
sugar  given  in  payment.  Except  in  this  one  case 
I  had,  in  undertaking  prosecutions,  to  rely  entirely 
upon  the  workers,  and  even  those  who  beforehand 
appeared  most  staunch  managed  to  evade  service 
of  summons,  disappeared  from  their  homes  in  a 
wonderful  manner,  and  were  with  difficulty  brought 
to  the  court.  Once  there  and  put  on  oath,  the 
truth  is  told  and  conviction  of  the  employers  fol- 
lowed in  each  case,  the  maximum  penalty  being 
obtained  in  one  case  and  £5  in  each  of  the  others. 
.  .  .  The  immediate  effect  of  the  proceedings  is 
that  money  is  handed  now  to  workers  by  the  agents, 
J  but  a  close  watch  will  have  to  be  kept  lest  .  .  .  the 
practice  is  continued  in  another  and  more  hidden 
form."*  This  was  a  prophetic  utterance,  as  in- 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1899,  pp.  275-7. 


GRATEFUL  WOMEN  83 

stances  of  struggles  in  later  legal  proceedings 
showed,  especially  in  two  distinct  appeals,  Squire 
v.  Sweeney  in  1900.*  In  many  ways,  by  letter  and 
by  word  and  gesture,  the  grateful  women  showed 
the  gallant  Inspectors,  Miss  Squire  and  her  successor, 
Miss  Martindale,  how  highly  their  adventurous 
efforts  were  valued.  At  this  time  it  came  out 
clearly  that  some  local  country  agents  of  manu- 
facturers of  the  big  centres  suffered  from  miserably 
low  commissions.  One  told  Miss  Squire  that  he 
had  no  commission  at  all,  that  he  had  ceased  to  pay 
in  goods  since  her  prosecution  showed  him  it  was 
illegal,  and  he  asked  her  if  she  could  help  him  to 
find  a  commission-paying  employer.  Special  care 
was  taken  to  bring  home  to  the  head  firms  in  the 
North  and  West  of  Ireland  the  grave  responsibility 
they  bore  in  this  matter. 

In  the  following  year,  not  only  in  Ireland  but 
also  in  Cornwall,  amongst  guernsey  knitters,  and 
in  Somerset  amongst  kid-glove  makers,  Miss  Squire 
carried  forward  this  endeavour  to  secure  respect 
for  the  right  of  the  worker  to  "  free  control  of  her 
own  earnings  unhampered  by  any  condition  as  to 
where  and  how  they  should  be  spent." 

"  Only  by  a  daily  intercourse  with  cottagers  in 
remote  villages  and  the  fishing  folk  of  little  seaside 
towns  .  .  .   can  the  real  nature  of  their  business 
transactions    be    fathomed.     The    information    so 
obtained  and  pieced  together  disclosed  a  state  of  1 
such  widespread  defiance  of  the  law  and  contempt  I 
of  the  rights  of  the  wage  earner  as  it  seems  incredible  / 
could  exist  in  England  at  the  present  time."     In 

*  Ibid,  1900,  pp.  29-30. 

7 


v 

5 


84     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

the  same  year  the  Superintending  Inspector  for  the 
Northern   Division   noted   that   there    existed    "  a 
considerable  amount  of  the  old  system  of  Truck," 
in  the  Shetland  shawl,  the  Harris  tweeds,  and  the 
fishing    industries    of    Scotland.     He    thought    it 
hardly  "remediable  under  the  Acts  by  the  Inspec- 
torate."    The  features  he  indicated  were  just  those 
against  which  Miss  Squire's  carefully  devised  cam- 
paign   was    directed    in    Ireland    and    South-West 
England.     Unquestionably,     new     and     unconven- 
tional methods  of  exploration  of  the  trouble  had 
to  be  tried.     The  Cornish  women  excelled  in  their 
knitting  of  yachtsmen's  guernseys  for   which   the 
/  nominal  payment  was  2s.  6d.  to  3s.  6d.  each,  but 
the  payment  was  in  drapery  goods  from  the  em- 
ployer's shop  "  at  whatever  price  and  of  whatever 
quality  the  employer  chooses  to  supply";  a  poor 
jcripple  woman  was  found  in  great  distress  with  a 
/man's  coat  on  her  hands,  when  she  sorely  needed 
*money  for  her  rent.     In  Somersetshire  villages  the 
kid-glove  makers  were  being  paid  in  goods  from  the 
grocery  shop  of  an  agent  who  fetched  the  work  from 
factories,  distributed  it  to  the  cottages,  collected  it 
again,  and  returned  it  to  the  factories.     The  ten 
cases  successfully  prosecuted  against  five  drapers 
and  grocers,  who  were  contractors  in  these  counties, 
had  an  immediate  good  effect  that  lasted  for  some 
time,  and  some  manufacturers  were  moved  to  open 
a  depot  in  Yeovil  where  they  gave  out  the  work 
and  paid  the  outworkers  in  coin  through  their  own 
clerk.*     A  recrudescence  of  the  system  was  found 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  [nspector,  1900,  pp.  352,  359, 
404. 


OUTWORK,  PIECEWORK,  AND  PROGRESS  85 

by  Miss  Slocock  in  1907  in  Somersetshire  after  the 
English  High  Court  decision  in  Squire  v.  Midland 
Lace  Company.  This,  like  the  Irish  decision  in 
Squire  v.  Sweeney,  practically  withdrew  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Truck  Acts,  1831  to  1887,  from  the 
English  outworker.* 

These  Acts  have  awaited  amendment  all  these 
years  from  1908  to  1921,  and  meantime  the  scope  */ 
of  wages  problems  for  women  has  widened  and 
changed,  in  Great  Britain  at  least.  The  War  wentl 
far  towards  establishing  for  women  a  legal  claim/ 
to  a  reasonable  minimum  wage;  first,  temporarily, 
when  they  were  employed  as  substitutes  in  great 
organised  men's  engineering  industries,  and  then 
through  Trade  Boards  gradually  set  up  in  trades 
where  no  adequate  machinery  of  organisation  existed 
for  the  effective  regulation  of  wages.  Women's 
own  great  industrial  services  to  the  nation  during 
the  War,  fostered  and  encouraged  by  specialise^ 
training,  of  course  altered  the  outlook  fundamentally 
It  was  no  longer  a  favour  conferred  on  them  merely 
to  employ  them ;  their  work  and  their  special  apti- 1 
tudes  and  skill  were  seen  in  a  new  light  as  a  service 
to  the  community. 

Yet  even  before  these  new  motives  came  in  sight, 
things  had  not  stood  still,  for  the  Factory  Act^of 
1895  had  made  secure  the  claim  of  tile"  pieceworker 
to  a  definite  contract  as  to  her  prospective  earnings 
on  any  given  piece  of  work.  That  Act  directly 
extended  to  all  pieceworkers  in  textile  trades  the 
right  to  written  particulars,  q£  W0r^  nrirl  "^(pg  in 
a  sectionf  which  was  declared  by  Mr.  Birtwistle — 

*  Ibid.,  1907,  p.  196.         |  Factory  Act,  1895,  sect.  40. 


S6     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

first  Inspector  of  Textile  Particulars — to  be  "  with- 
out doubt  the  most  popular  section  of  any  Act  of 
Parliament  ever  passed  in  the  interest  of  labour."* 
The  strong  organisation  of  the  textile  trades,  es- 
pecially the  Lancashire  cotton  trade,  had  secured 
the  beginnings  of  this  protection  to  some  textile 
pieceworkers  in  the  Act  of  1891. f  It  was  sug- 
gested possibly  by  a  similar  provision  for  handicraft 
silk  weavers  in  an  Act  of  1845. 

It  was  so  immediately  successful  in  setting  these 
workers  free  from  the  torment  of  insecurity  in  cal- 
culating prospective  earnings  on  intricate  piece 
rates,  liable  to  frequent  alterations,  that  other 
pieceworkers  soon  called  for  its  aid.  This  was 
provided  for  by  the  power  taken  in  1895  to  apply 
the  benefit  of  the  provision  by  Order  of  the  Secretary 
of  State  "  to  any  class  of  non-textile  factories  or 
to  any  class  of  workshops  .  .  .  subject  to  such 
modifications  as  may  in  his  opinion  be  necessary 
for  adapting  those  provisions  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  case. "J 

This  just  and  simple  measure,  really  indispensable 
for  intricate  piecework  in  mass  production,  was 
valuable,  not  only  for  collective  bargaining  between 
employers  and  employed,  but  also  for  enabling 
individual  workers  to  understand  and  discuss  the 
basis  of  piecework  earnings.  It  was  happily  appliecN 
further,  by  the  V f  of  ]_u.m  to  outworkers  on  pre-y 
scribed  lists  kept  by  the  occupier  of  a  factory  o/t 
workshop  and  by  contractors.  § 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1896,  p.  74. 

f  Act  of  1891,  sect.  24.  $  Ibid.,  1895,  sect.  40  (G). 

§  Ibid.,  1901,  sects.  114  and  110. 


PARTICULARS  FOR  PIECEWORKERS     87 

With  the  aid  of  many  confidential  complaints 
from  women  workers,  the  Women  Inspectors  were 
enabled  to  make  a  long  series  of  effective  investiga- 
tions in  many  non-textile  industries  as  to  the 
inability  of  pieceworkers  to  calculate  what  their 
earnings  would  be  at  any  given  piece  of  work,  and 
as  to  their  consequent  bitter  feeling  of  grievance 
in  the  matter.  In  1896  Miss  Deane  reported  to  the 
Home  Office  on  the  need  for  application  of  the  clause 
to  workers  in  blouse,  apron,  and  handkerchief 
trades.  I  reported  similarly  in  that  year  on  the 
workers'  desire  for,  and  great  need  of,  this  provision 
in  the  wholesale  clothing  trade  in  the  North  of 
England,  and  I  completed  this  enquiry  for  the 
remainder  of  the  great  centres  of  the  industry  in 
England  and  Scotland  in  1897-98.  It  was  at  once 
found  that  the  practice  of  giving  particulars  to 
pieceworkers  was  already  in  existence  in  fair-dealing 
factories,  and  that  the  best  manufacturers  held 
that  "  the  only  business-like  system  is  to  have  a 
clear  contract  with  the  workers,  such  contract  to 
hold  good  until  the  question  of  a  new  one  has  been 
fully  considered  and  threshed  out."  In  1898  II 
reported  that  the  general  need  of  outworkers  who/ 
then  stood  outside  the  section  for  the  protectioi 
afforded  by  the  section  was  even  greater  than  tht 
need  of  the  factory  worker.*  The  needs  of  piece- 
workers in  pen-making,  hand  fustian  cutting,  under- 
clothing, shirt  and  collar  industries  were  investigated 
and  reported  on  in  quick  succession  chiefly  by  Miss 
Squire,  and  in  1899  our  first  cases  under  an  Order 
for  written  particulars  were  successfully  taken  into 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  p.  1Sl\ 


88     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

court  by  her.  This  advertisement  of  the  possibility 
of  applying  a  remedy  to  one  of  their  greatest  handi- 
caps and  grievances — lack  of  power  to  calculate 
earnings — brought  a  decided  increase  in  complaints 
about  wages  from  women  and  girls. 

The  1900  Order  for  particulars  to  pieceworkers 
in  the  pen-making  trade — where  long  and  intricate 
investigation  into  the  conditions  of  calculating  and 
paying  wages  had  been  necessary  in  this  industry 
of  many  minute,  successive  hand-tool  operations* — 
brought  strikingly  good  results  in  a  remarkably 
short  time.  The  results  were  not  only  material 
in  wages  to  the  worker,  but,  still  more,  moral  in 
engendering  confidence  between  workers  and  em- 
ployers. In  1898  there  was  much  lack  of  confidence, 
workers  asserting  that  their  "  lots  "  of  pens  were 
frequently  larger  than  the  nominal  amount,  and 
employers  were  more  or  less  resentful  of  investiga- 
tion. In  March,  1901,  Miss  Squire  reported  that 
the  occupiers  of  the  twelve  pen  factories — all 
situated  in  Birmingham — had  set  to  work  in  a 
"  highly  commendable  way  "  to  supply  the  pre- 
cribed  particulars.  I  doubt  if  any  change  in  methods 
of  stating  and  fulfilling  wage  contracts  was  ever 
more  quietly  and  rapidly  effected.  The  employers 
seemed  to  understand  thoroughly  the  spirit  of  the 
Order,  and  they  expressly  recognised  that  Inspectors, 
manufacturers,  and  workers  had  to  work  out  the 
details  of  the  new  requirement  together  in  a  har- 
monious way.  Here,  and  in  various  other  trades, 
the  complexity  and  mass  of  detail  that  had  to  be 

*  E.(j.,  catting,  piercing,  marking,  raising,  grinding, 
bending,  polishing,  etc. 


ORDERS  FOR  PARTICULARS  89 

mastered  in  developing  the  various  Orders  for  piece- 
work particulars  led  to  continual  interchange  of 
information  and  help  between  the  District  Inspec- 
tors and  the  floating  staff  of  Women  Inspectors. 
The  work  done  then  and  later  by  the  whole  Factory 
Department  must  certainly  have  smoothed  the  way 
for  introduction  of  Trade  Board  minimum  wage 
scales.  The  Orders  for  locks,  latches,  and  keys, 
cables,  chains,  and  cart  gear,  of  1902,  specially 
operated  in  this  direction. 

In  some  industries,  and  strangely  in  wholesale 
fustian  clothing  factories  situated  in  textile  dis- 
tricts where  the  idea  of  written  particulars  had  first 
prevailed,  there  was  much  patient  work  to  be  done 
by  the  Inspectorate  in  overcoming  a  stubborn 
adherence  to  defective  methods  of  giving  particu- 
lars, such  as  chalk  marks  on  garments,  use  of 
symbols,  and  their  refusal  even  to  give  particulars 
at  all. 

Early  in  1903  came  the  first  and  very  important 
extension  of  this  protection  to  outworkers  in  the 
wholesale  tailoring  trade.  Their  need  could  not  be 
expressed  in  the  same  clear,  organised  way  as  by  the 
factory  workers.  It  was  none  the  less  surely  to  be 
discovered  by  research  among  them,  as  Miss  Squire 
found  when  she  investigated,  directly  or  through 
visits  to  firms,  the  needs  of  over  6,000  outworkers. 
Her  account  of  the  variety  in  systems  of  giving  out 
work  in  the  four  great  centres — Leeds,  London, 
Colchester,  Bristol — and  the  risks  of  the  bag- 
woman  or  carrier  system  in  the  last  two  districts, 
must  be  read  to  acquire  an  adequate  idea  of  the 
needs  of  the  women: 


90       WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

/"The  bag  woman  or  carjiex  -sy*>iem  is  open  to 
much  abuse,  especially  vvfiere  these  are  really  con- 
tractors receiving  the  outwork  price  themselves' 
and  giving  what  proportion  they  think  fit  to  those 
to  whom  they  pass  on  the  work.  Sometimes  they 
keep  the  grocery  shop  of  the  village,  and  if  they 
are  sharp  enough  not  actually  to  infringe  the  letter 
of  the  Truck  Act,  sail  very  near  the  wind  and  obtain 
an  injurious  control  over  their  customers,  dependent 
as  these  are  upon  them  for  both  work  and  grocery. 
The  prices  paid  to  outworkers  for  either  making 
or  finishing  are  incredibly  low  at  the  best;  at  the 
worst,  the  '  slop  clothing  '  rate,  they  are  cruel. 
With  all  the  sad  experience  one  has  gained  in  many 
trades  of  the  amount  of  work  a  woman  will  do  for 
a  penny,  one  still  marvels  how  anyone,  however 
poor,  can  be  found  to  accept  the  rate  given  for 
some  classes  of  work,  as,  for  example,  elevenpence 
a  dozen  for  finishing  (that  is,  all  but  the  stitching 
of  the  seams)  men's  trousers.  When  the  rate  of 
wages  is  so  low,  it  is  of  great  moment  to  the  worker 
to  know  exactly  what  the  price  is;  she  wants  to  be 
absolutely  sure  that  she  has  not  been  misled  by 
some  symbol  into  putting  '  A  '  quality  work,  which 
takes  more  time,  into  a  '  B  '  quality  garment,  for 
which  she  will  receive  a  halfpenny  less,  or  to  run 
the  risk  of  being  told  when  she  takes  the  work 
back  to  the  factory  that  she  was  mistaken  if  she 
thought  the  price  would  be  eightpence,  as  it  had 
been  lowered  to  sixpence. 

("That  there  is  a  real  need  for  the  outworker  to 
have  .  .  .  the  written  statement  of  the  price  the 
emplo3rer  contracts  to  pay  was  abundantly  proved. 
In  the  absence  of  such  written  particulars  the  home-! 
worker  is,  at  best,  uncertain  as  to  the  price  she 
will  receive,  and  is  at  times  in  complete  ignorance, 
so  that  the  door  is  open  for  fraud  on  the  part  of 
'passer,'  or  carrier,  or  messenger."* 

*  Animal  Report,  1902,  p.  189. 


OUTWORKERS'  NEED  OF  PARTICULARS   91 

The  nrrr]_pf  -syrittnn  pnrtinnlnr/j  fnr  ou^workess 
was  voluntarily  recognised  by  some  employers, 
but  n*^j™»np  I^BJaBaaa^Ie  had  been  often  fitfully 
and  carelessly  carried  out  by  their  agents.  It  was 
pre-eminently  a  case  where  law  should  step  in  to 
bring  up  general  practice  to  the  level  admitted  by 
public  opinion  to  be  the  least  that  was  due  from 
employer  to  employed. 

At  the  end  of  1903  the  Order  for  particulars  to 
pieceworkers  in  the  shirt,  collar,  linen  underwear, 
corset,  and  other  wearing  apparel  trades  widely 
extended  this  safeguard  to  cover  unorganised 
women — to  their  immense  satisfaction.  "Mrs.  A., 
employed  in  a  chiffon  and  straw  hat  workshop, 
informed  the  Inspector  how  pleased  she  had  been 
to  read  in  the  political  news  of  Lloyd" s  about  the  new 
Order.  Formerly  she  never  knew  until  Saturday 
night  when  her  job  was  done,  what  she  would 
receive  for  it.  .  .  .  Miss  D.,  belt  and  tie  maker, 
.  .  .  recently  did  fifty  dozen,  expecting  2d.  more 
a  dozen  than  she  received."* 

The  work  of  enquiry,  followed  by  extension  of 
the  principle  of  supplying  written  particulars  to 
pieceworkers,  went  on  apace.  Seventeen  or  more 
trades  were  added  in  1907  by  composite  Orders, 
and  more  in  later  years.  Every  effort  was  made  to 
give  administrative  effect  to  all  these  Orders  as  fast 
as  possible.  The  Inspectors  acquired,  as  it  were 
automatically,  a  wide  and  detailed  acquaintance 
with  prevalent  wage  rates,  and  were  again  and  again 
struck  by  the  tendency  of  employ's,  to.  lower  rules 
"  directly  flirls  get  quick  aurl  ^arn  taQ—amfih 
"  It  appears  to  be  useless  to  point  out  that  this  is 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1904,  p.  279. 


92     WOMEN'S  WAGES  AND  TRUCK  ACTS 

/I  very  short-sighted  policy,  and  that  all  incentive 
V>  quick,  good  work  is  crushed  out."* 
v.  The  time  was  evidently  getting  ripe  for  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  minimum  wagejiegulation . 

And  yet  a  word  may  here  I)e"added  on  the  valuable 
help,  in  ratio  of  work  to  wages,  that  sometimes 
could  be  brought,  through  the  Factory  Act  and 
the  Factory  Inspector,  to  a  most  helpless  class  of 
workers,  those  in  low-paid  industries  who  were  prac- 
tically compelled  to  take  work  home  at  the  close  of 
the  legal  day  in  the  factory  in  order  to  keep  body 
and  soul  together.  A  striking  example  of  an  old- 
standing  breach  of  Section  31  of  the  Factory  Act 
of  1901  (restricting  employment  inside  and  outside 
the  factor}^  or  workshop  on  the  same  day),  with  a 
sinister  effect  on  the  wages  of  the  girls,  was  brought 
to  light  by  Miss  Escreet  in  Birmingham  in  1913: 

//  "  Workers  in  the  warehouses  of  a  pen  factory  had 
been  regularly  taking  home  cards  to  thread  with 
elastic  for  the  reception  of  pens,  compasses,  india- 
rubber,  etc.  The  Avorkers,  who  mostly  lived  some 
way  from  the  factory,  arrived  at  their  homes  about 
7.15  p.m.,  and  in  nearly  every  case  worked  steadily 
for  three  nights  in  the  week  for  three4  hours  or 
more.  Many  of  the  girls  with  large  quantities  of 
cards  to  do  received  help  from  their  relations;  even 
where  this  was  given,  their  leisure  was  encroached 
on  to  the  extent  of  one  and  a  half  to  two  hours, 
and  where  it  was  lacking  entirely,  work  sometimes 
went  on  till  midnight,  or  spread  to  four  or  five 
evenings  in  the  week.  Ample  evidence  was  at  hand 
to  explain  the  continuance  of  this  '  voluntary 
work  ' :   the  system    had  been  long  virtually  used 

*  Miss  Slocock  in  Annual  Report,  1907,  p.  193. 


MINIMUM  WAGE  REGULATION  93 

to  economise  on  the  wages  bill,  for  '  cards  '  were 
given  out  and  their  quantity  increased  at  regular 
intervals,  when  girls  would  normally  be  receiving 
a  rise.  That  the  economy  was  a  successful  one 
may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  average  weekly 
warehouse  wage  of  six  adult  workers,  taken  at 
random,  was  10s.  Id.,  which  they  increased  to  an 
average  of  13s.  5|d.  by  doing  '  cards.'  This  system 
enabled  the  employer  to  economise  in  his  insurance  ■* 
contributions  as  well  as  in  wages,  for,  without  the 
card-money,  he  would  have  been  liable  for  an 
increased  contribution.  The  girls  were  shrewd 
enough  to  appreciate  the  unfairness  of  the  system, 
and  welcomed  its  abolition,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
their  net  wages  have  dropped.  An  increase  has 
been  given  at  the  factory,  but  not  to  the  extent  of 
the  weekly  cards.  Nevertheless,  I  was  told  in  one 
case  by  the  sister  of  a  worker  that  they  had  had 
'  the  happiest  week  for  twelve  years. '  And  a  * 
grateful  Jewish  mother  wished  me  '  a  long  life,  antLr 
God  bless  you  '  over  and  over  again."  ' 


CHAPTER  IV 

DANGEROUS  AND   INJURIOUS  PROCESSES;   ACCIDENTS 
AND    SAFETY 

"  'Tis  a  sordid  profit  that's  accompanied  with  the  de- 
struction of  health." — B.  Ramazzini,  1678. 

Let  us  turn  now  from  general  conditions  affecting 
women  and  girls  in  factory  life  to  special  dangers 
due  to  "  any  manufacture,  machinery,  plant, 
process,  or  description  of  manual  labour."*  Here 
the  aid  given  by  Women  Inspectors,  though  ex- 
tensive and  indispensable,  has  hitherto  been  ancil- 
lary rather  than  primary  in  character.  They  have 
not  before  1921  been  brought  into  the  Factory 
Department  expressly  in  the  capacity  of  medical, 
engineering,  or  chemical  experts.  And  yet  their 
early  research  into  many  imperfectly  explored 
causes  of  injury  to  health  and  safety  of  women 
and  young  workers  was  so  steadfast,  and  their 
evidence  in  Annual  Reports  so  freely  read  and 
quoted  in  Parliament  and  the  Press,  that  they 
stirred  public  opinion  to  a  new  outlook  on  women's 
needs  in  these  matters.  As  time  went  on  the 
Department  was  able  to  draw  in  an  increasing 
number  of  women  candidates  with  good  degrees 
in  science,  and  with  considerable  experience  in 
research  or  in  work  of  an  administrative  character. 

*  Factory  and  Workshop  Act,  19Ul,  sect.  79. 
94 


APPLYING  KNOWLEDGE  95 

The  steady  pooling  of  knowledge  and  experience 
that  went  on  in  the  Women's  Branch  yielded  good 
fruit. 

The  Women  Inspectors  were  immediately  called 
on  by  the  Chief  Inspector  of  1893  to  1895  to  share 
both  in  enforcing  new  "  special  rules  "  for  dangerous 
and  injurious  processes,*  and  in  conducting  en- 
quiries with  a  view  to  strengthening  these  rules. 
They  came  into  the  service  practically  at  the 
beginning  of  the  new  movement  for  applying  scien- 
tific knowledge  in  these  matters;  knowledge  of 
some  of  the  ills  had  existed  before,  but  it  had  not 
been  applied  and  was  therefore  incomplete.  Theyi 
entered  the  Department  five  years  before  a  ^ftfljca-w 
Inspectors'  Branch  was  set  up,  and  three  years 
before  the  momentous  requirement  was  made  that 
medical  practitioners  should  notify  certain  diseases 
(lead,  phosphorus,  etc.,  arsenical  poisoning  or 
anffirax ) ,  ""coTitracted  in  a  factory  or  workshop,  to 
the  Chief  Inspector. 

Before  the  entry  of  the  Medical  Inspectorate,  the 
long-established  institution  of   part-time  certifying  A 
surgeonsf  had  brought  some  medical  observation,  > 
largely  unco-ordinated,  to  bear  on  industrial  con-  ' 
ditions.     From   their   private   practice   among   in- 
dustrial   workers    the    certifying    surgeons    often 
gathered  importanJLxecQrd»-Qi-4no!ivirlunil  eaasa  of. 
industrial  poisoning,  respiratory .iind-oiher.  jiiseases, 

y*  Such  as  white  lead  manufacture,  lucifer  match  making, 
quaint  and  colour  making,  hollow  ware  enamelling. 

f  For  examination  of  children  and  young  persons  under 
sixteen  years  as  to  physical  fitness  for  working  in  a  factory,-" 
and  enquiry  into  certain  grave  and  fatal  accidents. 


96  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

arising  from  injurious  conditions  of  manufacture. 
These  records  could  be  and  were  fully  utilised  by 
the  Medical  Inspectors  in  due  course — as  may  be 
well  seen  in  the  reports  and  other  writings  by  Dr. 
T.  M.  Legge  and  Dr.  E.  L.  Collis. 
r""Not  until  after  the  War  (in  1£21)  was  a  medical 
Woman  Inspector  appointed  to  the  Medical  Branch 
— Dr.  E.  M.  Hewitt.  During  all  the  earlier  years 
Irom  1893  reliance  was  placed  on  the  initiative  of 
the  Women's  Branch  of  the  Department  for  the 
highly  necessary  observation  by  women  of  condi- 
tions and  habits  of  women  and  girl  workers.  An 
outstanding  obstacle  to  obtaining  exact  knowledge] 
of  industrial  mortality  and  disease  amongst  women! 
arose  from  the  omission  to  enter  in  mortality  and 
hospital  records  the  occupation  of  married  womenJ 
whether  occupied  prior  to  or  during  married  lifej 
This  entailed  a  closer  individual  investigation 
among  women  than  among  men  for  clues  to  indus- 
trial disease  and  careful  following  up  of  their  cases 
outside  the  factory  as  well  as  inside.  When  informa- 
tion was  needed  on  grave  injury  and  early  deaths 
among,  for  example,  asbestos  workers  or  china 
>' scourers,  in  cases  of  lead  poisoning  or  phosphorus 
necrosis,  or  mercurial  poisoning  in  the  days  before 
notification  was  compulsory,  indispensable  contribu- 
tions were  made  by  the  investigations  of  Women 
Inspectors  in  many  directions,  and  especially  as  to 
the  effects  of  lead  processes  on  maternal  functions. 
The  earlier  tentative  "  speciaj^xules  "  for  safe- 
guarding the  workers  against  "  dangerous  and 
[unhealthy  incidents  of  employment "  had  been 
Wade  in  1892  and  1893,  under  the  new  powers  of 


SPECIAL  RULES  AND  REGULATIONS    97 

the  Factory  Act  of  1891  suggested  by  the  special 
rules  under  the  Mines  Acts.  The  special  rules  were 
made  on  the  proposal  of  the  Chief  Inspector  to  the 
occupier  of  the  factory  after  the  process,  machinery, 
or  manual  labour  in  question  had  been  scheduled 
by  the  Secretary  of  State  as  being,  in  his  opinion, 
"  dangerous  or  injurious  to  health,  or  dangerous/ 
to  life  or  limb,  either  generally  or  in  the  case  on 
women,  children,  or  any  other  class  of  persons.'! 
Each  occupier  had  a  right  of  objection  to  the  rules 
proposed,  and  provision  was  made  for  arbitration. 
In  the  absence  before  1896 jgf  any  medical  gxperts 
on  the  stall'  or  of  any  substantial  statistical  evidence 
of  cases  of  industrial  poisoning  and  disease,  the 
earliest  special  rules  could  only  be  few,  simple,  and 
experimental  in  character.  Gradually,  under  the 
direction  of  the  first  Medical  Chief  Inspector,  Sir 
Arthur  Whitelegge,  and  the  very  slowly  added 
medical  staff,  beginning  with  Dr.  T.  M.  Legge  in 
July,  1898,  knowledge  and  vigour  of  regulation 
grew.  Administrative  methods  of  establishing  regu- 
lation were  greatly  improved,  and  the  uncertainties 
of  arbitration  in  such  highly  expert  questions  were 
removed  by  the  Act  of  1901.  The  early  years  of  the 
twentieth  century  saw  what  was  unquestionabty 
the  most  remarkable  development  that  had  ever 
yet  been  attempted  in  any  age  or  country  in  apply- 
ing scientific  knowledge  and  care  to  the  protection 
of  workers  from  industrial  disease  and  injury.  At 
last  the  reproach  made  by  many  medical  observers 
(and,  particularly  in  our  country,  by  Medical  Officers 
to  the  Privy  Council  in  1860)  began  to  be  lightened; 
the  reproach  that  "  the  canker  of  industrial  diseases 


98  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

gnaws  at  the  very  root  of  our  national  strength," 
that  "  the  sufferers  are  not  few  or  insignificant,  .  .  ." 
that  "  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  is  most  imper- 
fectly appreciated,"  whether  by  the  authorities 
or  by  the  "  slowly  suffering  artisans  themselves  " — 
and  that  all  this  was  going  on  for  lack  of  expert 
advice  and  the  administrative  application  of  scien- 
tific methods  to  the  problems  involved.*  It  was 
so  long  before  the  idea  of  industrial  labour  as  a 
social  service  began  to  gain  ground  that  only  a 
few  enlightened  manufacturers,  here  and  there, 
could  attempt  to  try  remedies. 

It  was  not  only  medical  knowledge  that  was 
needed  to  trace  effects  on  the  human  frame  of 
poisons  (such  as  lead,  arsenic,  white  phosphorus, 
mercury,  etc.);  of  anthrax  and  tetanus  germs;  of 
gaseous  and  acid  fumes;  of  injurious  and  excessive 
dust;  of  excessive  moisture  or  heat;  of  muscular 
or  nerve  overstrain  and  impure  air.  The  work  of 
experts  in  engineering,  physics,  chemistry,  and,  not 
least,  in  patient  observation  of  the  habits,  working 
conditions,  ways  and  circumstances  of  the  workers 
affected,  was  equally  indispensable.  This  had  been 
to  some  extent  provided  for  in  the  reorganisation 
of  the  Inspectorate  that  followed  the  Consolidating 
Act  of  1878.  The  Acts  of  1883  and  1889  to  regulate 
white  lead  and  cotton  cloth  factories  carried  this 
matter  further  by  exploration  of  some  of  the  most 
injurious  conditions.  Thus,  in  the  ranks  of  the 
general  Inspectorate  knowledge  was  available  for 
technical  work  in  some  of  these  directions. 

*  See  especially  Fourth  Report  of  the  Medical  Officer  to 
tho  Privy  Council,  1861,  pp.  29,  31,  etc. 


DEVELOPING  REGULATIONS  99 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  principal  Act 
had  long  provided  for  the  great  safeguard  of  exhaust 
ventilation  for  removal  of  dangerous  and  injurious 
dusts,  fumes,  or  other  impurities  generated  in  the 
processes  or  handicrafts  carried  on — though  its  full 
preventive  scope  was  only  gradually  realised.  Its 
significance  was  explicitly  and  repeatedly  emphasised 
in  later  days  by  the  Senior  Medical  Inspector,  Dr. 
Legge,*  and  the  pioneer  work  of  such  leaders  as 
the  late  Mr.  E.  H.  Osborn,  H.M.  Superintending 
Inspector  of  Factories,  and  the  late  Mr.  C.  R.  Pendock, 
H.M.  Inspector,  in  the  application  of  engineering 
knowledge  to  these  matters,  should  always  be 
specially  remembered.  Their  work  was  carried 
forward  in  due  succession  by  Mr.  Sydney  Smith 
and  Mr.  Stevenson  Taylor. 

Under  the  Cotton  Cloth  Factories  Act  of  1889, f 
administered  by  Mr.  E.  H.  Osborn  and  by  Mr. 
Williams,  now  Superintending  Inspector,  exact 
standards  of  ventilation  and  hygrometers  were 
first  introduced  in  dealing  with  the  dangers  to 
health  from  excessive  humidity  of  the  atmosphere 
and  high  temperature  in  the  workshops.  Out  of 
these  experiences  came  recognition  of  mfifchfldifiaJ 
fggtfi  of  abeBUCaLjaMatgfa of~Uia  .ailLaf  workroo ms . 
Later,  scientific  emphasis  was  laid — by  Dr.  Leonard 
Hill,  F.R.S. — on  the  truth  that  it  is  rather  the 
physical  than  the  "  chemical  conditions  of  confined 

*  In  "  Occupational  Diseases,"  by  T.  M.  Legge,  C.B.E., 
M.D.,  etc.,  p.  68,  and  in  "  Lead  Poisoning  and  Lead  Ab- 
sorption," by  T.  M.  Legge  and  Kenneth  W.  Goadby,  1912, 
pp.  98-102. 

f  Later  amended  and  in  1911  developed  into  special 
regulations  under  the  Principal  Act  of  1901. 

8 


I 


100  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

atmospheres  which  influence  health  and  happiness  " 
of  the  worker.  Before  it  was  laid  down  as  a  truth 
that  "  overheated  and  still  air  decrease  the  activity 
of  the  body  furnace  and  so  lead  to  lessened  resistance 
of  disease,"  Women  Inspectors  were  steadily  bring- 
ing persuasive  pressure  to  bear  on  occupiers  for 
introduction  of  mechanical  ventilation  to  ease  the 
visible  strain  they  saw  in  industrial  work  in  the 
stagnant  heat  of  many  a  factory  or  workshed. 

When  Dgpa.rt m ejitajjQnm m i fttes-s  were  set  up,  from 
l_R^jjnwardit\  for  enquiry  into  various  dangerous 
trades,  outsit  mndinnl  "yprrt'  were  appointed 
as  members  before  the  advent  of  the  Medical 
Inspectorate.  In  1^3  the  precedent  was  first  set 
of  appointing  a  Woman  Inspector,  Miss  Abraham I 
to  such  Committees  where  employment  of  women! 
in  the  industries  made  this  specially  desirable. 
^Miss  Abraham  also  served  on  the  main  Dangerous 
<JXW]ps  rnmmi&*M»r-Ig.9/S  f.n  MjtfM,  on  whose  recom- 
mendations various  codes  of  special  rules  followed. 
With  Dr.  Legge  I  served  in  the  enquiry  into  Enamel- 
ling and  Tinning  of  Metals,  begun  in  1901,  and 
reported  on  for  each  section  separately  in  1903  and 
1907  respectively.  Less  than  ten  years'  application 
of  the  first  special  rules  of  1892  for  these  processes 
pad  sufficed  to  show  their  ii^tfeqita^y  for  controlling 
yke  risks  of  lead  poisoning.  Separate  regulations 
of  the  entirely  distinct  sources  of  danger  in  vitreous 
enamelling  and  in  tinning  of  metals  was  not  at  first 
seen  to  be  necessary;  the  obscurity  of  the  sources 
in  the  latter  led  us  to  a  point  where  our  need  of 
chemical  assistance  was  evident,  and  this  was 
provided    when   the   services    of    Mr.    G.   Elmhirst 


IMPROVED  CONTROL 


101 


Duckering,  H.M.  Inspector  of  Factories  and  a 
skilled  chemist,  were  lent  to  us.  A  difference  of 
method  in  the  tinning  of  hollow  ware  and  of  the 
tinning  of  terne  plates  had  given  us  a  clue.  His 
long  studies  and  exact  measurements  of  the  degree 
of  contamination  of  the  air  by  fumes  from  the 
tinning  bath,  and  from  the  surface  of  the  tinned 
hollow  ware  article  as  it  emerged  from  the  tinning 
bath,  led  to  definite  conclusions  as  to  the  presence 
of  lead  chloride  in  the  fumes  breathed  by  the  worker. 
And  so — at  last — we  reached  the  possibility  of 
obtaining  effectual  measures  of  control.*  The 
number  of  cases  of  poisoning  began  to  fall  in  the 
period  1909-11,  and  in  1920  only  two  were  reported 
(both  women),  and  these  from  a  factory  where  there 
had  been  a  breakdown  in  exhaust  ventilation. 
Meanwhile,  methods  of  manufacture  had  become 
less  dangerous  as  well  as  methods  of  exhaust 
generally  more  effectual. f 

From  this  experience  and  from  the  parallel 
activities  of  Inspectors,  chemists,  manufacturers  in 
the  far  greater  earthenware  and  china  industry, 
came  new^agthods  of  determination— of-^ust— and 
P2J2£ns  ^n  th^  aJji-jai-^^^rTTTrTn-ig  There  came  also 
re-enforced  activity  in  mjg  mo™*^^  tfisj^  of  mechani- 
cal exhaust  for  poisonous  fumes  and  dusts;  amend- 
ment of  construction  of  exhaust  apparatus,  and 
other  detailed  progress  in  what  Mr.  Pendock  well 
described  as  "  means  of  cleaning  the  atmosphere: 


*  Reports  on  Enamelling  of  Metals 
and  on  Tinning  of  Metals,  1907  (Ccl 
pp.  23  and  following. 

|  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1920,  p.  53 


1903   (Cd.    1C10), 
3793),    especially 


102  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

the  nrionrip,  nf  air  <p<iirifi£atiQ.n,  and  a  highly  im- 
portant science  it  is."* 

The  extent  of  the  work  that  was  waiting,  almost 
untouched,  in  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  to  be  overtaken  by  persistent,  meticulous 
application  of  this  science  to  protection  of  the 
health  of  the  industrial  worker,  may  be  partly 
realised  by  a  backward  glance  at  some  of  the 
appalling  records  as  to  disease  and  premature  death 
in  certain  dusty  processes.  It  must  be  remembered 
in  considering  the  early  figures  that  they  were 
gathered  before  the  discovery  and  recognition  of 
the  ubiquitous  tubercle  bacillus. 

Let  us  take,  first,  flax  preparation  and  carding, 
where  women  workers  were  in  the  majority: 

"  Dr.  Purdon,  in  1g7g.  states  the  mortality  as 
31  n e,r  1  QQO.  and  Dr.  Whitaker  in  his  report  on 
theTiealth  of  Belfast,  1S£2,  says  the  carder's  average 
length  of  life  is  only  16*8  years  of  work.  If  a  girl 
gets  a  card  at  eighteen  her  life  is  generally  ter- 
minated at  thirty.  The  preparer's  avemge  is 
28  "7  vem's  r>f  ^'»'t  The  '  rougher  ^  and  the 
'sorter,'  said  Mr.  Osbom,  work  in  a  continual 
cloud  of  dust  composed  of  particles  of  the  fibre 
'which  is  inhaled,  and  irritates  and  dries  the  throat 
and  gradually  finds  its  way  into  the  lungs,  producing 
chronic  inflammation  of  the  lining  membrane,  which 
soon  manifests  its  presence  by  the  worker  being 
attacked  each  morning  with  a  paroxysm  of  dyspnoea 
and  coughing.  A  worker  suffering  thus  is  said  to 
be  '  noucey  '  (pouce=dust=pow.ss*ere)  .  .  .  sojjie 
roughing  rooms   have  no  ventilation  but  windows 

*  "  Observations  on  Ventilation  of  Potteries  and  Re- 
moval of  Dust,"  by  C.  R.  Pendoek,  1913,  Stoke-on- 
Trent. 


/. 


FLAX  AND  FLINT  DUSTS  103 

opening  at  the  upper  part,  and  the  workers  face  the 

wall,  wh 

them."* 


wall,  which,  of  course,  reverberates  the  dust  upon. 


Far  higher  was  the  mortality  per  thousand  among 
"  chinaj^GQujcers  " — a  few  hundred  women  exposed  | 
to  rme  flint  dust  in  the  china  industry.  This  flint 
dust  also  severely  affected  men  in  china  biscuit- 
placing  shops,  in  saggar  emptying,  and  other 
operations. f  China  scouring  is  a  dry  process,  of 
which  the  word  is  descriptive,  to  which  the  ware 
is  subjected  after  it  has  been  fired  in  the  kiln. 
Before  firing  each  piece  is  buried  in  a  bed  of  fine 
flint  dust  in  a  receptacle  known  as  a  saggar,  in 
which  it  is  placed  in  the  kiln,  so  that  it  may  not 
adhere  to  the  saggar  or  other  pieces  of  ware  during 
firing.  On  coming  out  of  the  kiln  it  is  necessary 
to  free  each  piece  from  adhering  particles  of  the 
flint  dust  by  friction  of  three  kinds:  scrubbing  with 
a  stiff  brush  moved  by  hand  or  by  power,  rubbing 
with  stiff  flannel,  and  with  sand-paper.  The  extent 
of  the  injury  from  the  process  was  found  after 
patient  research  by  Miss  Deane  and  Miss  Pater  son 
in  1898.  Rediscovered,  one  might  more  precisely 
say,  for  the  enquiries  of  the  Royal  Commission  of 
1841  on  Employment  of  Children  and  Young 
Persons  had  made  it  clear  that  the  air  of  the  rooms 
in  which  china  scouring  was  carried  on  was  niled 
with  finely  piilvprisp.H  fl[nt,  the  inhalation  of  which 
was  "  nearly  as  fatal  as  that  of  the  grinding  stones 
of    Sheffield."     In    these    57    years    nothing    had 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1893,  pp.  194-5. 
f  Ibid.,  1898,  pp.  162-4.     See  also  Annual  Reports,  1919 
and  1920. 


104  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

changed  essentially.  "  Not  many  scourers  live 
4  long ;  we  all  feel  overloaded  upon  the  chest  and 
'cough  very  much;  I  cannot  lie  down  all  night  " 
(Commission  of  1841).  "  Against  the  danger  of 
this  occupation  scarcely  any  provision  has  been 
made  "  (Sir  John  Simon  to  the  Privy  Council  in 
1860).  In  their  preparation  of  some  evidence  for 
an  arbitration  in  Stoke-on-Trent  in  1898  on  revised 
special  rules  chiefly  concerning  lead  in  earthenware 
and  china,  the  Women  Inspectors  discovered  a 
remarkable  weakness  in  the  rule  controlling  flint 
dust.  Whereas  the  stronger  rule  for  elimination  of 
dust  by  a  positive  requirement  of  fans,  applied  to 
"  towing  "  of  earthenware  (i.e.,  rubbing  soft  clay 
dust  off  the  pots  with  tow),  the  far  more  dangerous 
flint  dust  of  china  scouring  was  controlled  only  by 
la  rule  requiring  removal  of  dust  "  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable," by  mechanical  or  other  efficient  means. 
With  energy  they  set  to  work  to  complete  the 
evidence  as  to  the  mortality  of  this  occupation — by 
examination  of  all  death  certificates,  during  two 
and  a  half  years,  of  women  between  fifteen  and 
seventy  years  who  had  died  in  Longton,  the  chief 
china  town,  from  respiratory  diseases  and  phthisis, 
and  by  visiting  the  homes  of  the  persons.  Com- 
paring deaths  per  thousand  among  all  women  in 
Longton  attributed  by  the  certificates  to  these 
diseases  with  those,  similarly,  among  women  who 
had  worked  regularfy  at  china  scouring,  they  found 
that  these  deaths  per  thousand  in  the  two  years 
^immediately  preceding  the  enquiry  had  been  nearly 
fifteen  times  as  great  among  china  scourers  as 
among  other  women  in  Longton.     The  figures  were 


CHINA  SCOURING  105 

given  in  detail  in  the  Annual  Report  for  1898.  The 
Inspectors  referred  several  cases  of  advanced  fibroid 
phthisis  that  came  under  their  notice  to  the  newly 
appointed  Medical  Inspector,  who  attributed  the 
physical  signs  in  the  lungs  to  inhalation  of  flint 
dust;  three  of  these  died  within  the  year.* 

The  Inspectors  visited  all  the  factories  where 
china  scouring  was  carried  on  and  found  that, 
whereas  efficient  fan  extraction  had  been  installed 
in  a  few,  yet  generally  full  advantage  had  been  taken 
of  the  permissive  character  of  the  rule  regarding 
mechanical  extraction  of  dust  by  omitting  it. 
Some  of  the  smaller  china  factories  were  wholly  or 
in  part  unfitted  for  use  as  workplaces.  The  rule 
was  amended  as  from  January  1,  1899,  with  marked 
results  in  improved  mechanical  methods  and  in 
reduction  of  the  disease  by  degrees.  I  found,  by 
a  comparative  enquiry,  ten  years  later,  that  th« 
high  mortality  from  respiratory  disease  and  phthisia 
was  reduced  to  less  than  half  among  china  scourers, 
but  this  was  still  far  too  high  a  rate,  and  many 
extremely  sad  cases  showed  the  need  of  strengthened 
pro  visions,  f  This  information  I  gave  with  much 
other  evidence  to  the  Departmental  Committee 
appointed  in  1908  by  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone,  since 
Lord  Gladstone,  to  enquire  into  dangers  from  use 
of  lead  and  injury  to  health  from  dust  in  china  and 
earthenware  and  incidental  processes. J     The  chair- 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  pp.  135 
and  163. 

t  Ibid.,  1908,  p.  144. 

%  The  Committee  reported  in  1910,  Cd.  5219,  Cd.  5278, 
and  Cd.  5385. 


106  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

man  was   Sir  Ernest  Hatch,   Bart.,   and  the  able 
secretary,  Mr.  E.  A.  R.  Werner,  a  skilled  chemist. 

To  the  work  of  this  committee  reference  must 
presently  be  made  in  dealing  with  lead  poisoning 
in  potteries;  here  we  must  recognise  the  immense 
advance  in  control  of  the  dust  problem  in  these 
works  that  followed  on  the  adoption  of  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  committee.  The  age  of  inactivity 
on  proven  ills  had  passed.  Undoubtedly  the 
presence  on  the  committee  of  leading  manufacturers 
and  workers  largely  conduced  to  the  practical 
thoroughness  with  which  the  problems  were  handled. 

Many  other  dusty  processes  affecting  women  that 
were  not  under  special  rules  also  engaged  the  close 
attention  of  Women  Inspectors,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing examples  may  be  given: 

-*  (a)  Asbestos  sifting,  mixing,  and  carding;  an 
industrysTngirTarly  little  considered  until  complaints 
from  the  girls  employed  came  in  to  us  year  by 
year,  from  1898  onwards.  The  sharp,  jagged  edge 
of  the  insoluble  mineral  dust  has  undoubtedly 
occasioned  much  illness,  and  death,  from  respiratory 
diseases.  The  first  asbestos  factory  I  entered  was 
entirely  without  applied  exhaust,  one  of  the  dustiest 
processes  being  carried  on  in  a  cellar.  In  another, 
revisited  in  1906,  on  a  complaint  thoroughly  justified 
by  the  thick,  fog-like  atmosphere  in  the  carding 
room,  ineffectual  fan  extraction  had  been  intro- 
duced, but  not  applied  to  the  points  of  produc- 
tion of  dust.  By  this  date  there  were  good 
examples  of  well  installed  mechanical  exhaust  in 
large  asbestos  factories,  and  progress  could  be 
secured  in  the  smaller  works.     In  1911  Miss  Whit- 


VARIOUS  DUSTY  PROCESSES  107 

lock,  M.B.,  an  Inspector  in  the  Women's  Branch, 
made  careful  study  for  us  of  this   industry,   and 
found  a  considerable  amount  of  phthisical,  bronchial, 
and  gastric  trouble  still  present.     The  least  defect 
in    the    working    of    the    applied    ventilation    was 
dangerous. 
—     (6)   Silk  wa-stift  narrlincr  and   spinning  gave  rise  to 
woeful  complaints  of  dust  from  women,  from  1898 
onwards.     Increased  injuriousness  of  the  excessive 
dust  in  preparatory  processes  coincided  with  the 
introduction  of  an  inferior  quality  of  silk.   Dr.  Legge 
found,  in  samples  referred  to  him  by  Miss  Squire, 
debris    of    silkworms    containing     "  an    enormous 
number  of  hook-like  structures,  probably  portions 
of   the   thoracic   and   abdominal   segments   of    the 
pupa  case."     This  gave  support  to  the  apparently 
strange  opinion  of  the  workers  expressed  to  Miss 
Squire   that    they  were  coughing  up  not  silk  but 
silkworms;    and    it    led    us    back    to    Ramazzini's 
account,  in  1678,  of  the  effect  on  silk  workers  of 
the   combing   of    "  grosser   filaments,    which   have 
parts  of  the  bodies  of  silkworms  mixed  with  them," 
that  they  were  troubled  with  "  a  vehement  cough 
and  great  difficulty  of  breathing  .  .  .  and  few  of 
them  live  to  an  old  age."*     Again  and  again  the 
npftdfor  sp.ientificallY  applied   psxfraust  had  to  be 
pressed  for  in  this  side  of  the  silk  industry,  some- 
thing inadequate  was  repeatedly  tried,  and  choked- 
up  ducts  to  fans  even  led  to  the  beating  back  of 
dust  on  the  workers.     Eventually  the  introduction 
of    machinery    for    cleaning    the    material    before 
carding — steadily  urged  on   the  occupiers — helped 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1898,  pp.  135,  171-2. 


108  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

to  solve  the  problem  of  efficient  extraction  of 
dust.* 
—  (c)  Teazle  brushing  in  hosiery  factories,  a  finishing 
process  lor  smaller  articles  in  Leicester  and  Notting- 
ham, produced  excessive  dust  of  broken  powdery 
wool  and  cotton  fibre,  causing  great  discomfort  in 
eyes,  and  choking  sensations  in  throat  and  chest. 
The  trouble  was  removed  and  valuable  surplus  dust 
for  reselling  was  saved  by  applying  exhaust  with 
closely  fitting  cover  to  the  machine  and  also  a 
I  patent  delivery  roller  at  the  back.  Excellent 
results  were  reported  in  the  following  year,  to  the 
satisfaction  not  only  of  workers,  but  also  manu- 
facturers and  foremen. f 

(d)  Mercerised  cotton  yarn  dust  was  first  noticed 
in  1902  as  giving  rise  to  what  was  known  as  "  mer- 
cerised fever,"  shivering  and  sickness  with  cough 
and  oppression  in  the  chest.  It  was  attributed  to 
strong  caustic  soda  in  the  cotton  fibre,  which  was 
irritating  to  the  bronchial  and  nasal  passages.  The 
trouble  was  removed  by  requiring  exhaust  venti- 
lation. % 

(e)  Miss  Squire  and  her  staff,  when  localised  in 
Manchester  from  1908,  had  their  attention  drawn 
(by  complaints)  to  excessive  dust  in  the  making-up 
warehouses  in  which  girls  were  employed  in  "  hook- 
ing and  lapping  "  heavily  "  sized  "  grey  shirting 
and  stiffened  muslin.  "  Stuff ed-up  "  chests  and 
throat  trouble  and  sickness  were  the  results,  and 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  p.  220,  and 
1920,  p.  75. 


[)20,  p.  75. 
f  Ibid.,  1906,  p.  221;  1907,  p.  173. 
j   Ibid.,  1902,  pp.  171-2. 


VARIOUS  DUSTY  PROCESSES  109 

great  discomfort  was  felt  even  by  the  Inspectors 
on  their  visits.     They  systematically  served  notice 
on    the    occupiers    to    provide    localised    exhaust  ^ 
ventilation,  which  removed  the  trouble.* 

(/)  Buffing  of  plated  articles — i.e.,  mechanical 
friction  with  Trent  sand  sometimes  mixed  with  lime 
— in  Sheffield  electro-plate  works  was  the  subject 
of  a  careful  study  by  Miss  Whitlock,  M.B.,  to 
whose  interesting  report  reference  may  be  made 
by  those  desirous  of  following  up  the  subject,  f  In 
the  majority  of  buffing  shops  the  women  stayed 
in  for  their  meals,  and  application  of  exhaust 
ventilation  was  only  found  in  one  shop.  She  found 
that  the  cases  of  phthisis  among  them  were  more 
than  double  the  rate  per  thousand  of  those  amongst 
women  over  fifteen  years  in  the  town,  and  that 
anaemia  was  prevalent. 

(g)  Dust  as  well  as  other  injurious  features  in 
little  scattered  country  flax  scutch  mills  was  specially 
followed  up  by  Miss  Martindale  from  1907  onwards 
in  North  Ireland.  Ineffective  fans  were  fixed  in 
many  of  these  mills,  and  described  by  the  workers 
as  "  a  pest  and  a  torment,"  through  their  alternative 
capacity  for  stirring  up  the  injurious  dust  and  for 
getting  choked  up  with  fibre  !  In  1914  I  took  part 
in  a  conference  in  Belfast  between  representatives 
of  the  Factory  Department  and  the  Irish  Board  of 
Agriculture  and  Technical  Instruction  with  the  aim 
of  concerted  action  as  regards  mechanical  ventila- 
tion of  the  scutch  mills.  These  mills,  being  mostly 
situated  near  flax  fields  for  the  first  stages  of  pre- 
paration of  the  dried  fibrous  material  for  manu- 
*  Ibid.,  1909,  p.  146.  f  Ibid.,  1910,  p.  129. 


110  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

facture,  concerned  both  Departments.  The  War 
intervened,  and  these  problems  have  there  fallen 
to  the  charge  of  a  new  administration.  The 
question  was  again  raised  for  the  Factory  Depart- 
ment during  the  War,  when  flax  growing  and  scutch- 
ing was  initiated  by  Government  action  in  various 
parts  of  England. 

Many  other  dusty  processes  and  the  health  of 
women  in  them  engaged  our  attention;  in  rag  and 
I  refuse  sorting,  fur-pulling,  in  hatters'  furriers' 
(factories  and  horsehair  factories,  in  starch  rooms 
lof  confectionery  works,  hemp-rope  works,  sack- 
mending,  cotton  waste  works,  indiarubber  works, 
eiderdown  and  kapok-filling  factories,  clay  pipe 
scouring,  embossed  paper  lace-making,  etc.  In  a 
lace -tinting  business  for  dressmakers  we  called  in 
Dr.  Collis's  aid  for  investigation  of  marked  injury 
to  health  of  all  the  workers;  he  not  only  found  the 
soreness  of  nostrils  and  pharynx  associated  with 
inhalation  of  dust,  but  also  phthisical  results  from 
the  finely  divided  dust  shaken  out  by  hand  from 
the  lace.  Here  the  occupier  at  great  expense 
provided  efficient  exhaust,  drawing  off  dust  from 
the  lace  without  this  shaking  by  hand.  Improved! 
methods  of  working  were  in  our  experience  aj 
frequent  consequence  of  our  demands  for  extractioi4 
of  dust. 

In  connection  with  an  enquiry  in  Sheffield  into 
the  association  of  phthisis  and  dusty  trades  Miss 
Whitlock  found  that  the  system  of  compulsory 
notification  of  consumption  already  in  practice  there 
in  1911,  combined  as  it  was  with  enquiry  into  occupa- 
tion of  the  patient,  greatly  facilitated  her  work. 


BRONZING  AND  IMPROVED  METHODS  111 

Bronzing,*  whether  by  hand  or  machine,  of  all 
kinds  of  paper  programmes,  showcards,  prospectuses, 
Christmas  cards,  etc.,  in  lithographic  works  or 
departments  of  works,  affected  workers  in  ways 
that  almost  perennially  commanded  our  attention. 
Dust  from  bronzing  was  on  the  border  line  between 
those  that  are  simply  mechanical  in  action  on  the 
respiratory  passages  and  those  that  are  either 
irritant  or  poisonous.  In  the  earlier  years  the  work 
itself  was  generally  intermittent,  not  continuous. 
Although  the  Dangerous  Trades  Committee  in  1896 
made  recommendations  in  their  first  interim  report 
for  control  of  risks  in  this  process  by  special  rules, 
the  apparent  absence  of  permanent  injury  to  health 
among  those  engaged  in  it  led  in  the  first  place  to 
the  application  by  the  Home  Office  of  voluntary, 
not  compulsory,  rules  for  protection  of  the  workers. 
Our  activities,  conjointly  with  District  Inspectors, 
in  pressing  questions  of  dust  extraction,  means  of 
maintaining  personal  cleanliness,  overalls,  supply 
of  milk,  examination  of  workers  by  the  certifying 
surgeon,  and  so  on,  fortunately  led  to  improvement 
in  bronzing  machines  with  vacuum  arrangements 
for  dust.  Probably  they  led  also  in  part  to  the 
concentration  of  the  work  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
occupiers  that  followed;  finally,  special  regulations 
were  made  compulsory  in  April,  1912. 

In  1911  an  important  step  was  taken  for  more 
systematic  work  by  Women  Inspectors  in  the  field 
of    dangerously    dusty    processes.     In    conference 

*  Which  produces  the  effect  of  gilding  by  application  of 
•<very    finely    divided    metallic     dust     (copper,     zinc,    tin, 
antimony,  being  various  ingredients). 


112  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

with  Mr.  Pendock,  as  District  Inspector  and  venti- 
lating expert,  arrangements  were  made  by  Miss 
Lovibond  (Mrs.  Moorcroft)  for  the  taking  of  records, 
on  tabular  cards,  of  anemometer  tests  at  hoods\ 
connected  with  mechanical  exhaust  ventilation/ 
so  as  to  bring  steady  pressure  to  bear  on  occupiers 
of  factories  for  testing  and  maintaining  efficiency 
in  their  installations.  As  I  said  then:  "There  can 
be  no  question  that  supervision  of  the  provision  of 
really  efficient  exhaust,  and  steady  maintenance 
of  it,  when  provided,  in  thorough  working  order  is 
the  supremely  important  task  of  the  Inspectorate 
in  all  dusty  trades  where  dust  is  of  a  kind  inhaled, 
whether  the  dust  is  simply  mechanical  or  irritant 
or  poisonous  in  contact  with  the  mucous  membrane 
or  respiratory  tracts."*  The  taking  of  these 
records,  of  which  copies  were  supplied  to  occupiers, 
fortunately  aroused  much  interest,  and  among 
workers  as  well  as  employers.  In  the  next  year 
about  1,000  records  were  made  in  the  Potteries 
alone,  including  all  places  where  workers,  reported 
for  lead  poisoning,  were  working  at  or  near  the 
exhaust  ventilation.  Miss  Whitlock  took  over  this 
work  at  the  close  of  that  year  and  added  an  in- 
valuable enquiry  into  nearly  all  the  reported  lead 
cases  among  women  in  potteries  in  1913,  giving  us 
careful  studies  of  the  conditions  and  ways  of  workers, 
with  suggestions  for  future  prevention.  Early  in 
1914  we  lost  her  increasingly  valuable  aid  in  medical 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  pp.  150-7. 
The  form  of  card  record  used  can  be  seen  on  p.  219  of 
"  Lead  Poisoning  and  Lead  Absorption,"  by  Drs.  Legge 
and  Goadby. 


ANEMOMETER  TESTS  AND  RECORDS   113 

questions  concerning  women  through  her  trans- 
ference to  the  Industrial  and  Reformatory  Schools 
Department.  Then  the  great  upheaval  of  the  War 
turned  us  away  from  quiet,  fruitful,  concentrated 
activities  of  this  nature  to  the  many  problems 
arising  from  the  intensified  industrial  production 
by  women  for  national  needs. 

I  have  been  here  led  from  point  to  point  by  follow- 
ing up  one  kind  of  protection,  which  is  a  funda- 
mental one,  against  risks  in  industry  from  the  various 
types  of  dust  and  from  lead  fumes.  This  will 
suggest,  perhaps,  as  well  as  any  other  method 
of  approach,  something  of  our  share  as  Women 
Inspectors  on  behalf  of  women  workers  in  the 
immense  work  that  was  carried  on  by  the  Factory 
Department  during  the  years  1893  to  1914  in  striving 
to  lessen  the  special  risks  of  injurious  and  dangerous 
processes.  It  is  impossible,  except  by  devoting 
a  whole  book  to  it,  to  do  more  than  give  samples 
of  our  service  in  this  side  of  Factory  Act  adminis- 
tration. 

Some  notion  of  the  magnitude  and  complexity 
of  dangers  to  be  regulated  and  injuries  to  be  pre- 
vented, with  the  chief  preventive  measures  embodied 
in  "  special,, regulations,"  can  be  gathered  from 
Appendix  I. — a  tabular  summary  that  I  made  in 
1013  (and  which  has  been  brought  up  to  the  present 
date  by  Miss  Squire,  O.B.E.),  giving  these  details 
in  alphabetical  order  for  all  the  trades,  processes, 
and  descriptions  of  manual  labour,  that  are  certified 
by  the  Secretary  of  State  as  "  dangerous  or  in- 
jurious to  health  or  dangerous  to  life  or  limb." 

In  addition  to  the  research  needed  before  regula- 


114  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

tions  were  made,  to  the  giving  of  evidence  to  Com- 
mittees, Arbitrators,  and  Commissioners  appointed 
by  the  Secretary  of  State,  when  objections  to  draft 
regulations  had  to  be  reviewed — besides  instruc- 
tion to  occupiers  and  workers,  and  prosecution  when 
necessary — we  gave  a  great  deal  of  attention  to 
another  side:  the  exclusion,  or  proposed  exclusion\ 
from  very  dangerous  processes  of  classes  of  persons  J 
whose  age  or  sex  made  them  specially  susceptible  toy 
poison  or  other  risks.  The  special  interest  of  the 
whole  community  in  protection  of  maternity  and 
health  of  young  workers,  for  example,  was  the  chief 
point  on  which  we  had  influence  in  developing 
regulations  for  the  white  lead  industry,  in  which 
the  extraordinarily  dangerous  character  of  the  main 
processes  had  led  to  special  control  years  before 
Women  Inspectors  entered  the  Factory  Department. 
Those  who  desire  to  follow  out  the  history  of  regu- 
lation in  this  industry,  originally  the  foremost 
among  "  occupations  injurious  to  health,"  might 
begin  with  the  account  in  the  Annual  Report  of 
the  Chief  Inspector  for  1879,  when  it  was  already 
illegal  to  employ  in  it  any  person  under  eighteen 
years  of  age;  and  might  further  consult  a  complete 
concise  account  of  the  various  processes,  their 
dangers  and  prevention,  in  "  Lead  Poisoning  and 
Lead  Absorption,"  by  Dr.  T.  M.  Legge  and  Dr. 
K.  W.  Goadby,  Chapter  XVI.*  On  and  after  July  1, 
1899,  it  became  illegal  under  special  rules  to  employ 
a  woman  in  the  peculiarly  dangerous  processes  in 

*  A  vivid  description  of  women's  work  in  blue  beds 
before  conversion  into  white  lead  was  given  by  Miss  Sadler 
in  the  Annual  Report  for  1913. 


LEAD  POISONING  115 

white  beds,  stoves,  etc.  And,  so  far  as  this  industry 
is  concerned,*  most  of  the  effect  of  the  Women  and 
Young  Persons  (Employment  in  Lead  Processes) 
Act,  1920,  passed  in  pursuance  of  the  Washington 
Convention  of  1919,  had  been  long  ago  attained  in 
our  country. 

Other  dangerous  lead  processes,  originally  highly 
serious  for  young  women  workers,  are  found  in  the 
electric  accumulator  industry.  Here  again  our 
evidence  supported  the  exclusion  of  these  workers 
from  such  risks,  and  since  1903  "  no  woman,  young 
person,  or  child  "  may  be  employed  "  in  the 
manipulation  of  dry  compounds  of  lead  or  in 
pasting."f 

Although  it  was  not  until  1908  that  the  primary 
investigation  by  an  Inspector  of  reported  cases  of 
industrial  poisoning  or  anthrax  cases  affecting 
women  and  girls  was  assigned  by  the  Home  Office 
to  the  Women  Inspectors,  we  had  always  used 
these  reports  for  supplementary  enquiries.  We 
had  already,  before  1900,  a  wide  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  under  which  lead,  phosphorus,  and  mer- 
curial poisoning  had  occurred,  and  had  brought 
to  light  unreported  cases,  particularly  of  lead  and 
phosphorus  necrosis,  and  some  secondary  effects 
of  lead  poisoning  in  women. 

The  latter  point  was  strongly  exemplified  in 
some  information  that  I  presented  in  the  Annual 
Report  for  1897,  gathered  by  Miss  Paterson  and  Miss 

*  Comprising  twenty-one  factories  registered  in  1920,  as 
compared  with  G39  for  pottery  manufacture  and  decoration. 

t  Regulations  for  Manufacture  of  Electric  Accumu- 
lators, 1903,  No.  1004. 

9 


116  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

Deanc  during  that  year.  They  enquired  into  scvent}'- 
seven  reported  cases  of  plumbism  amongst  married 
women  employed  in  lead  processes  in  the  Potteries 
of  Staffordshire,  where  the  most  injurious  lead  pro- 
cesses— e.g.,  colour  dusting,  ware-cleaning — fell  to 
women.  They  found  among  these  a  high  degree 
of  cliHdlcssncss,  stillbirths,  and  miscarriages;  that 
thifty-six  only  had  had  living  children  averaging 
three  each,  and  of  the  total  number  of  children 
two-fifths  had  died,  the  majority  succumbing  to 
convulsions  in  infancy.  Two  sample  cases  gave 
a  tragic  warning  as  to  the  social  as  well  as  individual 
physical  effects  of  employment  in  lead  processes 
on  maternity:  "  A.B.,  aged  twenty-nine,  married 
seven  years,  had  worked  in  lead  ten  years,  had  three 
miscarriages,  five  stillborn  children,  and  one  child 
alive  who  died  in  convulsions  when  a  few  weeks  old. 
CD.,  aged  twenty-five,  married  seven  years,  began 
to  work  in  lead  in  her  seventeenth  year,  had  had 
four  miscarriages  and  three  stillborn  children;  her 
one  living  child  was  born  after  she  was  absent  from 
her  work."* 

Other  cases  as  sad  and  sadder  were  found  first  by 
Miss  Martindale,  then  by  Miss  Vines,  during  their 
successive  and  systematic  work  in  the  Potteries 
from  1903  to  1908.  The  latter  visited  practically 
all  women  reported  for  lead  poisoning,  and  a  striking 
example  was  the  case  of  Mrs.  B.,  colour  duster  and 
paintress,  aged  thirty-eight,  married  fifteen  years, 
who  had  nine  miscarriages  and  one  living  child, 
ill  all  the  three  years  of  its  life;  was  herself  disabled 
with  wrist  drop  of  both  hands.  She  had  to  take 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  p.  101. 


EFFECTS  ON  MATERNITY  117 

her  case  into  court  to   obtain  compensation  due 
to  her.* 

Although  such  enquiries  dealt  with  a  grave  evil 
to  some  extent  understood  before,  the  subject  gives 
a  good  example  of  ways,  arresting  to  the  general 
onlooker,  in  which  women  investigators  seized  on 
features  or  consequences  of  industrial  employment 
of  women  that  concerned  the  nation.  Their  con- 
sequent action  and  recommendations  emphasised 
the  need  of  steady  investigation  by  qualified  women 
of  absenteeism  among  women  workers  in  lead  pro- 
cesses, and  the  extremely  unsuitable  conditions  of 
publicity  under  which  medical  examination  in  these 
early  days  sometimes  took  place  in  the  factory. 
"  This  led,  not  infrequently,"  said  Miss  Deane, 
"  to  failure  in  detecting  the  very  evils  which  it  is 
the  object  of  the  examination  to  find  out  and  elim- 
inate."! 1^  appeared  in  1900,  when  I  took  some 
prosecutions  against  leading  employers  for  neglect 
of  duties  regarding  medical  examination,  that  there 
was  a  strong  tendency  for  girls  who  felt  ill  to  leave 
a  pottery  without  the  suspension  by  the  certifying 
surgeon  provided  for  in  the  special  rules  of  1899. 
Poverty,  dread  of  loss  of  employment  without  com- 
pensation— which  was  later  made  available  for  them 
in  such  cases  by  the  voluntary  action  of  the  manu- 
facturers themselves — seemed  to  me  the  strongest 
cause  of  that  tendency.  Records  of  poignant 
individual  cases  accumulated  by  the  Inspectors 
made  this  factor  very  clear. 

In  the  remarkable  Pottery  Code  of  Regulations, 
1913,  which  followed  on  the  general  lines  of  drastic 

*  Ibid.,  1906,  p.  214.  t  Ibid.,  1900,  p.  369. 


118  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

recommendations  made  by  the  Departmental  Com- 
mittee under  Sir  Ernest  Hatch,*  careful  requirement 
was  made  that  a  private  room  should  be  provided 
for  the  examination  of  workers  by  the  certifying 
surgeon,  and  other  safeguards  of  privacy  were  laid 
down.  Some  other  provisions  needed  to  secure 
effectual  use  by  the  workers  of  safeguards  provided 
for  them  followed  the  lines  indicated  by  complaints 
of  women  workers  to  the  Women  Inspectors.  On 
these  they  had  accumulated  evidence,  sometimes 
with  the  aid  of  information  given  by  officials  of  the 
"  Potteries  Fund,"  a  voluntary  fund  for  assistance 
of  women  and  girls  suffering  from  lead  poisoning 
in  this  industry.  For  example,  separate  washing 
conveniences  were  now  required  for  the  sexes; 
women  had  explained  to  me  in  detail  how  they 
could  not  use  the  same  conveniences  as  men  coming 
from  hot  and  dusty  processes  such  as  "  glost  plac- 
ing," in  which  a  large  proportion  of  the  men  and 
boys  were  employed.  New  detailed  care  was  given 
in  the  regulations  to  provision  and  maintenance  of  i 
protective  clothing  and  messroom  arrangements;  \ 
suppression  of  dust  by  methods  and  means  addi- 
tional to  those  of  exhaust  ventilation ;  better  control 
of  temperature;  control  of  heavy  weight  carrying 
by  young  workers,  cleaning  of  floors,  boards,  and  , 
benches;  new  limitation  of  hours  for  men  as  well  as 
women  in  dangerous  processes;  exclusion  of  women  ! 
and  young  workers  from  certain  processes.  These  ' 
and  other  matters,  particularly  rules  against  heavy 
weight  carrying,  and  for  better  methods  of  cleaning 

*  Appointed  1908  by  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone,  reported 
1910,  Cd.  5219,  Cd.  5278,  and  Cd.  5385. 


THE  POTTERIES  CODE  OF  1913         119 

floors,  boards,  etc.,  which  were  strongly  supported 
by  the  evidence  arising  out  of  our  long  researches, 
were  remarkably  thoroughly  dealt  with  in  the  code. 
An  entirely  fresh  stimulus  was  applied  to  the  sense 
of  responsibility  in  the  occupiers  of  potteries  by 
a  requirement  that  the  occupier  himself  should 
appoint  a  competent  person  to  carry  out  systematic 
inspection  of  the  working  of  all  the  regulations,  and 
to  keep  records  of  the  inspection.  This  was  truly 
a  novel  requirement  in  so  ancient  an  industry, 
relying  as  it  too  long  had  done  on  traditional 
methods.  How  much  it  was  needed  may  be  seen 
in  a  sample  prosecution  by  Miss  Martindale  in  1913. 
She  had  found  that,  so  far,  the  tendency  had  been  to 
note  and  record  only  breaches  of  the  code  by  workers. 
She  said:  "Undoubtedly  this  is  salutary,  but  not, 
I  take  it,  all  that  regulation  27  was  intended  to  do. 
I  revisited  with  Miss  Whitlock  a  factory  in  which 
in  October  she  had  noted  not  less  than  twenty-six 
breaches  of  the  regulations.  The  record  of  self- 
insj)ection  showed  no  irregularities  since  July.  .  .  . 
The  Works  Inspector  stated  that  he  '  had  not  ob- 
served any,'  although  the  irregularities  were  such 
palpable  ones  as:  not  providing  milk,  not  affixing 
thermometers  and  placards,  not  painting  boards 
red."*  Conviction  and  heavy  penalties  followed 
the  taking  of  proceedings. 

In  addition  to  the  industries  above  touched  on, 
where  women  and  girls  have  run  risk  of  lead  poison- 
ing, litho  transfer  making  for  decoration  of  earthen- 
ware china  gave  us  much  thought  in  the  past 
owing  to  the  exposure  of  young,  anaemic  girls  to 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  p.  89. 


120  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

finely  powdered  dust  containing  lead.  Inclusion 
of  the  process  under  the  stringent  Pottery  Regula- 
tions, and  improved  methods  of  dust  extraction., 
have  greatly  reduced  the  risks.  The  glazing  of 
bricks  with  lead  in  the  glaze,  later  shown  to  be 
unnecessary,  was  found  by  Miss  Squire  in  1898  to 
be  causing  fits  among  the  girls  who  were  scraping 
the  edges  of  the  bricks.  These  attacks  had  been 
thoughtlessly  attributed  to  hysteria  until  brought 
under  medical  observation.  Heading  of  yarn  dyed 
by  lead  chromate  and  painting  of  perambulators 
still  take  prominent  place  amongst  other  industries 
from  which  lead  cases  affecting  female  workers  are 
notified.  This  may  be  seen  in  the  Table  given 
below  in  Appendix  II.,  which  is  included  in  order 
to  enable  readers  to  appreciate  the  reductions  in 
industrial  poisoning  that  have  followed  the  changes 
indicated  since  1900.  The  interesting  liability  of 
lead  to  turn  up  in  miscellaneous  industries,  in 
quite  unexpected  ways  and  places,  and  especially 
in  the  great  range  of  small  metal  industries  in 
the  Midlands,  is  too  wide  a  subject  for  further 
consideration  here.  Sample  cases  and  a  long  list 
of  industries  may  be  seen  in  the  Annual  Report 
for  1913.* 

The  great  general  fall  in  number  of  reported  lead 
rases,  particularly  in  potteries,  that  had  come  about 
by  1914  (see  Appendix  II.),  and  is  still  more  marked 
in  later  years,  is  no  doubt  due  in  the  main  to  the 
preventive  measures  I  have  so  briefly  indicated. 
Foremost  of  all  came  improved  methods  of  exhaust 
ventilation,  but  very  important  also  were   cleanU- 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  pp.  137-8. 


REDUCED  RISKS  121 

ngfts  and  reduction  in  k^""*"-^  ™y»h      Until  trade 
is  quite  normal,  however,  the  true  effect  of  these 
measures  and  of  the  great  aid  given  first  by  legal 
compensation    and  then  by  National  Health  In- 
surance— which  enable  workers  to  obtain  treatment 
and  rest  from  work  at  an  early  stage  of  illness — 
cannot   be   fully   known.     The   detailed,    thorough 
investigation  done  among  the  women  exposed  to 
lead    by    Women    Inspectors    (and  particularly  in 
1912  to  1914  by  Miss  Whitlock),  which  culminated 
in  a  series  of  prosecutions  for  numerous  contraven- 
tions   of    the    new    regulations    affecting    them    in 
potteries,  no  doubt  led  to  a  fresh  start  for  them. 
Of  industrial  poisoning  Miss  Whitlock  wrote  in  1913 : 
"  Poverty  with  its   attendant   worry  and  lack  of 
nourishment  appears  to  be  a  predisposing  cause  in 
many  cases.     The  youth  of  many  of  the  workers  is 
noticeable.  .  .  .     Apart  from  the  painful  character 
of  the  illness,  the  length  of  time  the  cases  last  is  a 
serious   matter.  ...     I    often   came  across   cases 
which   had   been   over   a  year   on   compensation." 
"  A  woman  in  a  warehouse  told  me  that  she  had 
been  over  three  years  at  work  after  three  years  on 
compensation  and  still  suffered  from  pains  in  her 
limbs,  and  was  obliged  sometimes  to  absent  herself 
from   work."      Of   cases   of   serious   illness   among 
women  heading  yarn  dyed  in  lead  chromate,  Miss 
Tracey  observed:   "  Without  home  visits  it  woulch 
have    been    impossible    to    gauge    the    extent    and/ 
severity  of  the  illness."*     Unquestionably  specialist 
work  by  Women  Inspectors  still  remains  to  be  done 
for    women    workers    in    dangerous    trades,    even 
*  Ibid.,  1913,  pp.  88,  89. 


122  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

.though  the  figures  of  poisoning  seem  to  show  them 
f  to  be  nOW  in  a  much  sj^rjnsitipn.  thn.n_gjf  n  The 
figures  alone  do  not  disclose  the  whole  matter. 
Much  may  yet  be  learned  by  following  up  "  absent  " 
or  "  left  "  women  workers,  as  well  as  by  seeing 
reported  cases  in  their  homes.  A  marked  mobility 
of  women's  labour  in  lead  processes  in  potteries 
was  found  in  1911  by  Miss  Sadler.  In  sixty-eight 
potteries  at  the  time  of  inspection  (between  January 
and  September)  no  less  than  258  were  marked  in 
the  special  register  as  "absent"  or  "left,"  apart 
from  suspensions  and  reported  cases.  Out  of  forty 
cases  diagnosed  as  lead,  she  found  twenty-four  still 
suffering  and  in  receipt  of  compensation;  and  also 
that  the  majority  were  under  thirty  years  and  not 
suffering  from  accumulated  effect  of  bj'gone  con- 
ditions.* When  compulsory  compensation  began 
to  take  effect  it  was  gratifying  to  watch  the  growth 
of  realisation  among  manufacturers  of  the  poverty 
caused  by  plumbism.  In  the  past  much  had  been 
hidden  in  obscurity  by  the  tendency  of  the  poor 
to  suffer  in  silence.  Manufacturers  showed  in- 
creasing recognition  of  the  importance  of  utilising 
compensation  to  the  best  advantage  for  the  indi- 
vidual cases. 

From  time  to  time,  though  rarely,  mention  was 
Jmade  in  Annual  Reports  of  the  appointment  of  a 
/medical  woman  by  employers  to  supervise  the 
I  health  of  women  and  girls  in  a  large  factory.  This 
movement  passed  into  a  new  phase  during  the  War, 
when  national  munition  factories  set  the  example 
of  appointing  whole-time  women  medical  officers. 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  p.  145. 


INTRODUCTION  OF  MEDICAL  WOMEN   123 

In  1920  we  learned  that  in  "  a  growing  number  of 
factories  medical  women  are  appointed  to  supervise 
health  of  women  and  girls."*  In  the  same  year  the^ 
first  appointment  of  a  woman  as  certifying  surgeon/ 
was  made  by  the  Chief  Inspector — in  West  London. 
These  developments  in  drawing  medical  women 
into  official  contact  with  industry,  and  particularly 
the  appointment  of  a  woman  as  one  of  the  Medical 
Inspectors  of  Factories,  have  a  greater  significance 
for  future  protection  of  the  health  of  women  workers 
since  the  absorption  of  the  Women  Inspectorate, 
from  August.  1,  1921,.  onwards,  into  the  general 
district  work  of  the  whole  country.  Instead  of  con- 
centrating enquiries  and  action  on  behalf  of  working 
women,  the  Women  Inspectors  must  necessarily 
give  their  time  largely  to  men  and  boy  workers, 
male  workers  being  not  less  than  65j3e£j^aiL-odLall 
persons  employed  in  factories  and  .workshops. 

'Meanwhile  the  whole  pottery  industry,  the 
match-making  industry,  and  others  with  features 
that  concerned  the  health  and  safety  of  women  in 
a  special  degree,  have  reorganised  themselves  on 
lines  recommended  by  the  Whitley  Report.  Their 
Councils  have  happily  immediately  concerned  them- 
selves with  improving  conditions  of  health  and 
welfare.  When  one  sees,  as  I  have,  the  admirable 
detailed  work  done  for  health  and  safety  in  a  factory 
with  the  aid  of  workers  on  a  works'  committee  in 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1920,  p.  84, 
and  Report  of  War  Cabinet  Committee  on  Women  in 
Industry,  1919;  Memorandum  by  Dr.  Janet  Campbell 
on  Health  of  Women  in  Industry,  p.  293,  regarding  urgent 
need  for  Women  Medical  Inspectors  of  Factories. 


124  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

an  industry  with  a  National  Council — particularly 
in  a  factory  with  an  experienced  welfare  superin- 
tendent working  harmoniously  with  the  works' 
committee — one  realises  what  a  long  way  has  been 
travelled  since  1893.  Each  year,  since  1919,  has 
seen  contact  of  the  Factory  Department  with  new 
Councils,  in  questions  relating  to  health,  safety,  and 
welfare — a  matter  to  which  we  may  revert  in 
Chapter  VIII. 

The  pursuit  of  certain  salient  developments  in 
control  of  foremost  industries  responsible  for  lead 
poisoning  where  women  are  concerned  has  led  me 
so  far  to  pass  by  absorbingly  interesting  work  of 
Women  Inspectors  on  varied  risks  and  injuries 
during  the  twenty-seven  years  under  review,  thus 
only  (as  in  the  question  of  control  of  dust  and 
fume  by  mechanical  means)  could  I,  in  so  enormous 
a  subject,  sketch  some  kind  of  picture,  that  might 
remain,  of  the  women's  claim  and  our  lines  of 
response. 

It  is  necessary,  however,  in  order  to  have  any 
true  picture  of  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspectors 
to  sketch  rapidly  some  other  of  its  less  closely 
interwoven  features.  The  effects  of  bisulphide  of  " 
carbon  as  a  solvent  in  the  making  of  rubber  articles; 
of  white  phosphorus  for  the  dipping  paste  in  match- 
making, producing  phosphorus  necrosis,  called,  with 
a  sinister  familiarity,  "  phossy  jaw  ";  of  a  solution 
of  mercury  to  assist  felting  in  hatters'  furriers, 
causing  varying  degrees  of  mercurial  poisoning; 
these  took  even  more  of  our  time  and  thought  in  I 
early  years  than  did  many  of  the  injurious  dusts 
already  mentioned.     As  for  white  phosphorus,  con- 


VARIOUS  INDUSTRIAL  POISONS        125 

siderable  as  was  our  share  in  tracking  down  hidden 
cases  of  ngnrosis  and  other  ill-health  in  lucifer 
match  girls,  and  in  helping  to  build  up  special  rules 
against  the  horrible  risk  of  painful  and  disfiguring 
disease,  yet  all  that  is  now  only  of  historical  interest, 
for  statu tox^4^oi^iJbiUon  ^l^lhe,, deadly  ingredient 
i^matcjjes,  whether  manufactured  in  our  country 
or  imported,  came  in  19^B  by  an  Act  which  took 
Affiflfiti  frnir>- Ta.min.ry  i  A&IO.  And  the  active  Joint 
Council  of  this  reformed  industry  and  intelligent 
works'  committees  in  some  factories,  with  their 
highly  developed  mechanical  methods,  fittingly  bear 
moral  responsibility  for  seeing  that  no  such  risks 
ever  arise  again.  Our  last  reference  to  any  cases 
of  necrosis  was  in  the  Report  for  1909,  when  three 
young  women  were  (all  from  one  factory)  under 
treatment  in  a  local  hospital — one  for  her  first 
operation  on  the  jaw,  another  for  her  fourth,  while 
the  third,  seen  at  home,  had  had  two  operations. 
All  had  suffered  much.  Some  cases  arose  during 
the  War  among  men  employed  in  manufacture  of 
phosphorus.  In  india-rubber  works  of  recent  years 
we  have  seen  and  dealt  more  with  the  effects  of 
naphtha  fumes,  dust,  lead,  great  heat,  and  heavy 
weights,  than  with  bisulphide  of  carbon  covered 
by  special  rules.  The  last  bad  case  we  had  was  in 
1911,  from  a  factory  where  press  of  work  led  to 
employment  of  girls  for  a  longer  consecutive  spell 
than  the  two  and  a  half  hours  permissible  under 
special  rules.  Hysteria,  bordering  on  insanity, 
followed,  and  the  poor  girl  was  summarily  dismissed 
for  "  insobriety  and  rowdyism."  She  recovered 
quickly   on   separation   from   the   work,    and   was 


126  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

restored  to  her  usual  quiet  self-control.*  In  the 
following  year  we  had  some  cases  of  mercurial 
poisoning  in  a  hatters'  furriers'  workshop  due  to 
particles  of  dust  from  rabbit  fur  previously  brushed 
with  a  solution  of  mercury,  the  process  being  known 
as  "  carotting."  These  were  attributed  to  a  failure 
to  maintain,  in  good  repair  and  efficiency,  the  other- 
wise excellent  system  of  exhaust  ventilation,  and 
to  the  use  of  an  extra  strong  solution  of  mercury  to 
assist  the  felting  property  of  inferior  fur.f 

As  for  anthrax,  owing  to  the  supreme  importance 
of  bacteriological  research  and  technical  remedies 
requiring  specialists  in  this  industrial  disease,  such 
services  as  we  were  able  to  render,  in  investigation 
of  the  circumstances  in  reported  cases  affecting 
women,  although  far  from  negligible  as  regards 
conditions  in  factories,  were  entirely  subsidiary  to 
the  work  of  the  medical  branch.  Sometimes,  too, 
we  disclosed  hidden  risks  to  women,  engaged  at 
home  in  cleaning  and  mending  of  a  husband's 
clothing  when  he  was  employed  in  handling  hides 
or  other  infective  material.  Two  out  of  six  cases 
affecting  women  in  1914  occurred  amongst  women 
not  working  in  industry,  one  the  wife  of  a  tanner. 
The  prosecution  of  a  brush  manufacturer  for  breach 
of  regulations  in  his  factory  brought  out  the  fact 
that  one  of  his  outworkers,  who  had  suffered  from 
an  attack  of  anthrax,  was  not  covered  by  protective 
regulations.     The    obscure    origin    of    some    cases, 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  p.  147. 
The  old  Special  Rules  have  been  converted  into  more 
modern  Regulations  in  1921. 

f  Annual  Itcport  of  Chief  Inspector,  1912,  p.  138. 


ANTHRAX  AND  OTHER  RISKS  127 

even  among  factory  workers,  appeared  in  a,  case 
affecting  a  cotton  spinner  engaged  in  cotton  that 
had  been  shipped  from  Alexandria,  and  in  various 
cases  among  women  sorting  or  mending  sacks  that 
had  conveyed  bone  dust.* 

Carbonic  oxide  poisoning,  particularly  in  laundries, \ 
traceable  to  escape  of  gas  through  defective  fittings  \ 
of  ironing  machinery,  was  a  subject  that  repeatedly 
engaged  the  attention  of  Women  Inspectors  receiv- 
ing complaints  of  illness  among  the  girls  employed 
on  this  work.  In  one  laundry,  which  had  escaped 
inspection  through  failure  of  the  occupier  to  notif}?1 
its  existence,  girls  were  found  to  have  been  gravely 
ill  with  severe  symptoms  of  this  form  of  poisoning. 
Proceedings  instituted  against  the  occupier  for  the 
failure  to  notify  occupation  and  for  using  a  gas 
iron  emitting  noxious  fumes  led  not  only  to  con- 
viction, but  to  a  special  penalty  (on  account  of  the 
injury  to  health  due  to  his  neglect  of  provisions  of 
the  Act),  which  was  applied  to  the  benefit  of  the 
injured  worker. f 

The  use  of  bichromate  of  potassium,  causing 
"  chrome  holes  "  in  the  hands  of  workers  taking  a 
very  long  time  to  heal,  in  dye  works  and  in  whole- 
sale photography  works,  was  also  brought  under 
our  observation. 

In  these  kinds  of  risks,  in  cases  of  illness  in 
tobacco  works  attributed  to  nicotine  poisoning,  and 
in  numerous  cases  and  varieties  of  trade  eczema 
(inflammation  of  the  skin  or  dermatitis),  we  brought 
much  information  to  the  Senior  Medical  Inspector, 

*  Ibid.,  1913,  p.  87. 

t  Ibid.,  1902,  p.  168;  and  Factory  Act,  1901,  sect.  136. 


128  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

and  received  his  help  in  taking  action  to  secure 
remedies.  Among  the  trades  and  processes  in 
which  we  gathered  or  discovered  instances  of 
dermatitis — some  severe  and  obstinate,  others 
quickly  yielding  to  treatment — were  lime-juice 
manufacture,  fancy  biscuit  finishing  in  confectionery 
works,  electro-plating  with  use  of  potash,  mercurial 
processes  in  electric  meter  fitting,  enamel  dipping 
in  metal  hollow  ware  works,  use  of  oil  in  tobacco 
twist  rolling,  spinning  and  "  batching  "  with  use 
of  shale  oil  for  softening  the  fibre  in  jute  works, 
use  of  naphtha  as  a  solvent  for  paint  on  the  hands, 
lacquering  in  brass  foundries,  claret  bottling,  gut 
preparing  at  salt  machines.  In  fish  curing,  where 
salt  sores  from  the  brine  have  been  an  affliction  for 
centuries  for  the  workers  engaged  in  pickling  herring, 
we  did  but  turn  fresh  powers  of  observation  on  to 
a  well-known  industrial  ill;  and  in  this  seasonal 
calling  the  making  of  a  Home  Office  Welfare  Order 
providing  for  first  aid  as  well  as  rest-rooms  and 
other  amenities,  has  brought  remedies  that  should 
be  thoroughly  effective  in  Yarmouth  and  Lowestoft. 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  War  the  whole  position  as 
regards  the  control  of  dangerous  and  injurious 
trades  and  processes  stood  in  complete  contrast  to. 
the  almost  stagnant  conditions  of  legislation  for 
hours  of  labour.  Just  when  a  new  stage  was  set 
for  new  risks  as  well  as  new  experiments,  the 
Factory  Department  held  the  great  advantage-point 
secured  by  the  long  scientific  work,  described  above, 
in  many  different  kinds  of  dangerous  and  injurious 
occupations.  A  markedly  successful  reduction  in 
industrial   poisoning   had    been  achieved.     Having 


TOXIC  JAUNDICE,  DOPE,  AND  T.N.T.     129 

this  body  of  knowledge  and  experience  it  was  a 
comparatively  simple  matter  to  supply  the  same 
methods  of  control,  when  serious  new  kinds  of 
industrial  poisoning  appeared  during  the  War,  in 
connection  with  the  rapid  development  of  aircraft 
and  explosives  manufacture.  Cases  of  "  toxic 
jaunglice-,''  popularly  known  as  "  dope  poisxtning,'' 
which  occurred  in  the  varnisjiing..  o£jJie_ .wings  of 
aeroplanes  by  means  of  a  solution  containing  tetra- 
chlorethane  and,  later,  in  the  manufacture  and  use 
of  trinitrotoluene  for  high  explosive  known  as  T.N.T. , 
could  be  quickly  studied  and  the  causes  regulated. 
In  the  varnishing  of  wings  of  aeroplanes  the  in- 
gredients of  the  solution  were  ultimately  changed.* 
In  the  case  of  T.N.T.  poisoning,  resulting  also  in 
toxic  jaundice,  the  Factory  Department  were  able 
to  supply  to  the  Ministry  of  Munitions  and  Ex- 
plosives Supply  Department  a  sufficient  body  of 
evidence  and  the  example  of  special  regulations, 
for  them  to  develop  their  own  necessary  safeguards 
in  the  national  and  the  controlled  factories.  In  the 
national  and  some  of  the  controlled  factories  medical 
officers  were  specially  appointed  at  the  works, f  and 
the  whole  of  the  evidence  was  reviewed  both  by 
Dr.  Legge,  Senior  Medical  Inspector  at  the  Home 
Office,  and  the  Medical  Officers  at  the  Ministry  of 

*  The  varnishing  was  to  make  the  wings  impervious 
to  moisture  and  air.  For  the  interesting  story  of  the 
changed  methods,  see  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector 
for  1914,  chapter  xii.,  and  further,  regarding  methods  of 
ventilation,  the  Annual  Report  for  1917,  pp.  18-20. 

t  See  Medical  Research  Committee  Annual  Report  for 
1916  and  1917  for  experiments  in  laboratories  and  studies 
in  factories. 


130  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

Munitions.     The  remarkable  reduction  in  cases  of  I 
toxic  jaundice  may  be  seen  in  Appendix  II. 

Let  us  turn  from  disease  or  injury,  the  causes  of 
which — such  as  dust,  poison,  germs,  irritants,  or 
a  combination  of  any  of  these — could  be  definitely 
ascertained  and  controlled,  and  let  us  glance  at  more 
general  features  and  conditions  of  work  that  tend 
to  impair  the  strength  or  diminish  the  resisting 
capacity  of  the  worker.  Under  this  category  the 
items  on  which  the  Women  Inspectors  concentrated 
energy  and  action,  with  marked  results,  were  many. 
Some  I  have  already  dealt  with,  such  as  excessive 
|  hours,  bad  general  sanitation,  extremes  of  tempera- 
Iture,  uncertain  and  low  wages  (leading  to  grave 
\insufnciency  of  food  and  other  necessaries).  Fore- 
most among  those  with  which  I  have  not  yet  dealt 
were  heavy  weight  lifting,  carrying  or  moving, 
beyond  the  physical  strength  or  growth  of  the 
worker;  long  hours  of  unnecessary  standing;  heavy 
treadling  or  other  undesirable  use  or  strain  of  parts 
of  the  body  in  processes  where  adapted  appliances 
should  be  substituted;  excessive  vibration  from 
heavy  machinery ;  excessively  monotonous  specialised 
parts  of  processes  that  could  not  be  carried  on  for 
long  without  nervous  strain;  excessively  wet  or 
humid  conditions  of  work;  lack  of  means  of  pre- 
paring or  taking  food  at  the  works,  or  of  main- 
taining personal  cleanliness  in  dirty  or  offensive 
processes  (by  suitable  washing  appliances  and 
protective  clothing). 

It  is  impossible  to  enlarge  on  the  study  and  action 
of  the  Inspectors  in  all  these  directions.  The 
questions    of    messrooms  and   food,   washing   con- 


OTHER  INJURIOUS  CONDITIONS      131 

veniences,  cloakrooms,  protective  clothing,  and 
seats  are  touched  on  in  the  last  two  chapters  of 
this  book.  A  few  words  may  be  said  here  on  heavy 
weights  which — in  their  great  strain  on  children 
and  adolescent  girls  and  on  mothers — made  a  special 
appeal  to  the  Women  Inspectors,  and  on  undesirable 
use  of  parts  of  the  body  for  certain  processes. 

In  1897  I  first  reported  on  investigation  of  com- 
plaints of  an  injurious  pressure  upon  girls  ancT"\ 
women  in  factories  to  lift  or  carry  heavy  weights^/ 
I  had  to  point  to  the  fact  that  such  complaints  must 
be  classified  as  "  outside  the  scope  of  the  Factory 
Acts,"  and  that  our  "  action  has  been  confined  to 
noting  the  conditions,  and,  where  it  appeared 
possible  or  likely  to  lead  to  good  results,  we  have 
drawn  the  attention  of  the  employer  to  them."  I 
suggested  that  the  system  of  preliminary  examina- 
tion as  to  physical  fitness  for  the  work  to  be  done 
should  be  a  possible  way  of  partly  meeting  the 
difficulty  in  the  care  of  young  workers.*  In  the 
Factory  Act  of  1901  a  provision  was  included  em- 
powering the  certifying  surgeon  to  qualify  his 
certificate  of  fitness  of  young  workers  entering  a 
factory  by  conditions  as  to  the  work  on  which  a 
child  or  young  person  under  sixteen  is  fit  to  be 
employed.  At  the  suggestion  of  the  Factory 
Inspectors  this  power  was  frequently  used  by 
certifying  surgeons i  jn^nmxLy-differen tujidllgjaies. to 
limit jbhe  weight  that  might,  be  lifted,  raoyed^Qr 
carried  by  these  young  workers — and  with  great 
effect  in  the  Staffordslnr£_Eottexi©s^" 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  p.  104. 
t  Ibid.,  1910,  p.  130. 

10 


132  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

It  was  in  1900  that  I  quoted  a  view,  expressed 
with  some  prescience  by  Miss  Squire,  on  the  probable 
effect  of  introduction  into  the  English  law  of  a 
requirement  (such  as  there  was  then  in  the  French 
law)  specifically  limiting  the  weights  that  might 
be  lifted,  carried,  or  moved  by  young  workers 
and  women.  It  has  special  interest  in  view  of 
wartime  experience,  in  national  factories,  of  State 
control  of  labour-saving  appliances  to  prevent 
overstrain  of  women  and  girls. 

>  "We  should  probably  see,"  she  said,  "a  speedy 
'increase  in  mechanical  means  of  lifting  and  carrying 
in  factories  and  workshops,  such  as  hoists  and  cranes, 
trollies,  endless  bands,  and  other  contrivances,  now 
so  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  .  .  .  The  intro- 
duction of  such  apparatus  would  not  mean  dis- 
placing of  women  and  girls,  it  would  only  increase 
their  remunerative  work,  for  most  of  these  affected 
are  pieceworkers,  and  the  time  now  taken  up  by 
journeys  to  and  fro,  fetching  and  carrying  their 
materials  or  work,  would  be  occupied  in  manu- 
facture, and  increase  both  their  wages  and  the  out- 
put of  their  departments. 

"  It  is  pitiable  to  see  young  growing  girls  employed 
as  beasts  of  burden,  staggering  under  loads  that 
men  hesitate  to  lift— yet  in  some  trades  this  is  an 
ordinary  sight.  ...  In  brick-making,  in  tinplate 
works,  in  iron  hollow  ware,  and  in  warehouses  in 
hardware  trades,  I  have  found  girls  aged  thirteen 
to  seventeen  carrying  loads  which  weighed  from 
30  pounds  to  111  pounds  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
their  employment.  Many  are  the  complaints  of 
weariness  and  overstrain  made  to  me  by  girls  and 
young  women — some  of  them  mothers — who  are 
too  poor  or  too  unskilled  to  leave  an  employment 


HEAVY  WEIGHTS  133 

which    is    making    too    great   a    demand    on    their 
physical  powers,  and  which  in  some  instances  hasv 
caused  serious  injury."* 

I  myself  saw  in  a  hollow  ware  works,  and  had 
weighed  on  the  spot,  a  weight  of  upwards  of  50 
pounds,  consisting  of  piled-up  galvanised  iron 
buckets,  that  a  young  girl  had  carried  across  a 
yard  and  up  a  steep  ladder  steps  without  handrail. 
Yet  even  that  seemed  to  me  less  serious  than  the 
heavy  loads  of  damp  clay  carried  by  thirteen-year- 
old  boys  in  Staffordshire  Potteries,  with  strained 
looks  and  beads  of  perspiration  on  their  brows. 
This  matter  has  been  carefully  regulated,  thirteen 
years  later,  by  the  special  regulations  for  potteries. 

In  tinplate  works  girls  of  fourteen  and  fifteen 
years  were  found  to  be  carrying  loads  of  sharp -edged 
plates,  weighing  100  pounds  and  over:  one  par- 
ticularly small  and  slight  girl  of  fourteen  years  was 
carrying  107  pounds  with  difficulty.  Complaints 
were  made  of  pains  in  the  side  and  of  swellings  and 
bruises  from  the  heavy  weight  on  the  hip.  In  one 
tinplate  works  boys  with  trollies  were  fetching  and 
carrying  the  loads  for  the  girls,  a  measure  said  to  be 
impossible  in  other  tinplate  works. 

y  "  Women  are  very  much  at  the  mercy  of  their 
'foremen  and  of  the  men  with  whom  they  work 
in  such  matters  .  .  .  girls  in  a  wire-bound  hose 
factory  were  slowly  heaving  up  large  coils  of  iron 
wire  weighing  108  pounds  from  stair  to  stair  up  a 
steep  ladder  staircase,  resting  at  intervals  to  take 
breath,  while  the  foreman  stood  by  and  the  rope 
for  elevating  the  coils  to  the  girls'  machine-room 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  p.  375. 


134  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

hung  idle.  .  .  .  The  employer  gave  a  sharp  repri- 
mand when  he  was  made  aware  of  it.  .  .  .  An 
obligation  not  to  '  allow  '  the  lifting  and  carrying 
by  young  persons  and  women  of  weights  above  a 
certain  standard  would  probably  best  effect  .  .  .  the 
adjusting  of  work  or  the  wages,  the  increased 
vigilance  to  protect  the  weak  from  being  imposed 
upon,  or  the  provision  of  labour-saving  appliances^ 
.  .  .  required  to  remove  the  evil."*  * 

Remarkable  examples  were  given  by  Miss  Martin- 
dale  between  1902  and  1904  of  weights,  and  aggre- 
gate material,  handled  or  moved  in  a  day,  in 
potteries  and  brickworks — e.g.,  quarry  bricks  weigh- 
ing 50  pounds  each  were  carried  by  a  woman  or 
girl  to  the  kiln  and  handed  up  to  a  man  to  place; 
girls  wheeled  barrows  containing  forty  bricks 
weighing  9  pounds  each;  a  girl  handled  55  tons  of 
clay  a  day  in  lifting  bricks  from  a  machine  ;f  a  boy 
of  fourteen  years  weighing  77  pounds  fetched  clay 
,  for  a  moulder  who  worked  in  a  shop  up  a  steep 
flight  of  stairs,  the  weight  of  the  piece  of  clay  he 
was  carrying  was  G9  pounds; %  a  delicate  girl  of 
fourteen  years  fetched  on  an  average  three  to  five 
lumps  of  clay  an  hour  for  the  moulder,  and  was 
found  carrying  67  pounds;  a  girl  of  seventeen 
fetched  clay  for  eleven  moulders,  bringing  them 
each  four  lumps  a  day,  each  lump  weighing  \  cwt. 
The  mother  remarked  to  the  Inspector  on  the 
exhausted   state   in   which    her   daughter   returned 


',-.' 


*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1901,  p.  175. 
t  Ibid.,  1902,  p.  173. 

%  A  small  boy  was  once  found  by  Miss  Vines  carrying  a 
weight  greater  than  his  own  weight. 


HEAVY  WEIGHTS  135 

home  after  doing  "  men's  work  "  ;*  a  boy  of  thirteen 
years  was  found  struggling  up  a  steep  flight  of  stairs 
carrying  clay  weighing  78  pounds. 

Patient  observations  of  this  kind  went  on  in 
numerous  industries  year  after  year,  and  the  mass 
of  material  in  the  published  Annual  Reports  is 
great.  Ventilation  of  the  question  led  to  its  in- 
clusion in  various  Home  Office  Orders  of  Regulations 
(e.g.,  fruit  preserving  works  in  1907,  potteries  in 
1913).  The  most  important  step,  however,  was  the 
passing  of  Clause  3  (4)  in  the  Employment^  of 
Children  Act^gO^:  "  A  child  shall  not  be  employed^ 
to~lift7~carry,  or  move  anything  so  heavy  as  to  be 
likely  to  cause  injury  to  the  child,"  and  "  child  "  / 
was  defined  as  a  person  under  the  age  of  fourteen  / 
years.  In  due  course  the  Factory  Inspectors  took 
cases  into  court  under  this  clause,  and  penalties 
were  obtained.  Public  j>Dinion  awakened  to  the 
evil,  and  much  godd  was  done  by  the  Inspectors 
when  they  simply  called  the  attention  of  many 
employers  to  the  need  of  limiting  weights  lifted 
and  carried  by  young  growing  workers.  When  Miss 
Lovibond,  for  example,  drew  the  attention  of 
employers  in  Burnley  to  heavy  cloth  carrying  by 
children,  they  made  no  objection  to  discontinuing 
the  practice.  In  1909  in  the  glass  factories  of 
Sunderland  women  were  working  in  pairs  carrying 
large  iron  trays  piled  with  flint  glass  dishes  weighing  ±^/ 
up  to  120  pounds,  cumbersome  as  well  as  heavy  to 
carry.  "  The  difficulty  could  be  overcome  by  suit- 
able mechanical  means,  and  it  is  satisfactory  that 
in  these  cases  the  danger  had  only  to  be  pointed 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1903,  pp.  221-2. 


136  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

out  to  have  it  remedied,  although  we  were  told  that 
for  forty  years  the  women  had  thus  been  beasts  of 
burden."*  In  1912  in  the  Staffordshire  Potteries 
the  employment  of  men  instead  of  boys  for  carrying, 
together  with  the  increased  use  of  trollies,  is  men- 
tioned as  a  consequence  of  the  action  of  the  Inspectors 
in  drawing  attention  to  the  subject  of  injurious 
weight  carrying,  and  particularly  to  the  prohibition 
in  the  Employment  of  Children  Act,  1903.  In 
Manchester  "  making-up  "  warehouses  many  in- 
stances were  found  of  girls  and  women  carrying 
pieces  of  cotton  cloth  weighing  from  60  to  70  pounds, 
a  great  strain  and  a  continual  grievance;  serious 
cases  of  overstrain  resulting  in  absences  from  work, 
unnoticed  by  employer,  were  traced  by  Women 
Inspectors  visiting  their  homes.  In  answer  to  the 
employers'  plea  that  the  women  were  themselves 
to  blame,  the  Inspectors  pointed  to  the  systematic 
laying  of  pieces  weighing  70  pounds  by  men  on  the 
shoulders  of  women  (slight,  city  and  slum  dwellers, 
and  undeveloped  girls),  who  filed  past  the  men  to 
receive  the  cloth  delivered  by  a  chute  from  a  room 
above.  Similar  and  greater  overstrain  was  found  by 
Miss  Squire  and  her  staff  in  Lancashire  among 
weavers  lifting  loom  weights  at  the  back  of  their 
looms.  The  injury  caused  is  "  often  not  noticed 
until  later  in  life."f  Improvements  in  both  these 
classes  of  cases  were  reported  in  1913. 

Of  all  the  various  ways  of  using  a  part  of  the 
human  body  in  a  disproportionate  or  unsuitable 
manner  to  perform  an  industrial  operation  for 
which  a  mechanical  contrivance  should  be  used,  I 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspeetoi',  1909,  p.  147. 
t   Ibid..  1909,  p.  147. 


LICKING  OF  LABELS  137 

may  mention  here  the  one  that  appears  most  fre- 
quently in  my  Annual  Reports.  The  "  licking  of 
labels  "  by  girls  or  boys  instead  of  moistening  the 
gum  on  the  labels  by  pads  or  a  machine  was  brought 
to  my  notice  by  a  thoughtful  employer  in  a  country 
thread  mill,  in  the  first  year  of  my  service  with  the 
Factory  Department,  as  a  very  undesirable  practice 
specially  injurious  to  the  health  of  young  workers. 
I  investigated  this  practice,  and  finding  it  in  fact 
frequent,  and  associated  with  signs  such  as  swollen 
glands  in  the  neck,  I  reported  the  matter  for  further 
enquiry  by  the  Dangerous  Trades  Committee.  They 
found  that  this  was  a  practice  not  only  in  thread 
mills,  but  also  in  silk  and  aerated  water  industries, 
and  probably  in  other  trades  also,  and  that  in  a 
large  Lancashire  thread  mill  the  tickets  for  bobbins 
were  almost  entirely  moistened  by  twelve  full-time 
young  workers,  licking  up  to  fifty  gross  labels,  and 
thirty-five  half-timers,  licking  up  to  twenty-five  gross 
labels  a  day,  while  a  woman  managed  to  lick  forty- 
five  gross  a  day.  As  the  firms  concerned  abandoned 
the  practice  in  favour  of  a  damper  when  attention 
was  drawn  to  the  subject,  no  regulation  was  recom- 
mended, and  the  Committee  merely  laid  stress  on 
their  opinion  that  such  a  practice  could  not  but  be 
prejudicial  to  health,  particularly  at  an  age  when 
growth  is  active  and  the  system  requires  all  its 
digestive  secretions,  even  if  the  gum  used  were 
perfectly  pure.  More  serious  injury  might  be  done 
if  infective  organic  material  or  poisons  were  present 
on  the  labels.* 

*  Final    Report    of    the    Departmental    Committee    on 
Dangerous  Trades,  1899,  pp.  31-3  (Cd.  9509), 


138  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

Many  years'  pursuit  of  this  subject  by  the  In- 
spectors showed  that  the  effective  cause  of  the 
continuance  of  the  undesirable,  and  sometimes 
injurious,  practice  was  the  pressure  for  rapid 
output;  under  a  system  of  piecework  remunera- 
tion a  young  worker  could,  by  use  of  tongue 
and  saliva,  acquire  a  rapidity  exceeding  the  speed 
obtained  from  the  use  of  any  available  hand- 
damper.  By  persistent  work  the  Women  Inspectors 
tracked  down  factory  after  factory  where  the  method 
continued,  and  got  the  practice  stopped.  The  last 
bad  instances  reported  on  were  by  Miss  Whitlock, 
M.B.,  in  1912,  in  an  Irish  mill,  where  she  found 
girls  fixing  blue  labels  to  a  bronze  band  wrapped 
round  balls  of  thread.  They  had  to  lick  the  whole 
surface  of  the  blue  label,  and  although  not  con- 
tinuously engaged  on  the  work,  a  girl  would  label 
as  many  as  960  balls  in  a  day.  They  suffered  from 
soreness  of  lips  and  tongue  and  bad  taste  in  the 
mouth,  while  a  mother  seen  at  home  said  her 
daughter  had  lost  her  appetite  and  "  failed  terribly  " 
while  at  this  work.  She  took  her  away  from  it,  and 
the  girl  had  quite  recovered  her  health  when  em- 
ployed as  a  spinner.  Not  only  did  the  manager 
abolish  the  licking  by  providing  and  enforcing  use 
of  dampers,  he  also  raised  the  la  I  idlers'  piece-rates 
by  one-third.  It  is  a  valuable  example,  for  it  is 
not  seldom  fh;>t  iutrndiiction_Qf  improved  methods 
oFworking  may.cosfr  the  workers  more  in  immediate 


1  ossjj£-wage8-4rhait  it  is^pcresrbie tor  tliem  to -afford .  * 
Among  the  industries  other  than   thread-spooling 

*  Anmial  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1912,  p.  142,  and  for 
1913,  p.  90. 


ACCIDENTS  AND  SAFETY  PROBLEMS     139 

where  licking  was  checked  by  the  Inspectors,  were 
packeting  of  sweets  (in  gelatine  bags  closed  by 
licking),  siphon-labelling,  tin-labelling,  and  cigar- 
banding.  In  1903  I  was  able  to  give  an  account 
of  a  good  power-driven  machine  for  punching  labels 
and  pasting  them  on  to  thread-spools  which  I  had 
seen  that  year  at  work  in  silk  mills  in  the  Grand 
Duchy  of  Baden,  a  health  and  time-saving  machine 
doing  the  work  very  efficiently.* 

Accidents  causing  bodily  injury  or  loss  of  life, 
and  problems  of  safety  connected  with  fencing  of 
machinery!  moved  by  mechanical  power,  and  other 
special  safeguards  against  explosion,  escape  of  steam, 
falls,  etc.,  involve  highly  technical  questions.  In 
factory  industry  as  a  whole  they  affect  male  workers 
in  a  far  higher  degree  than  female  workers;  in  1920 
there  were  more  than  thirty  times  as  many  fatal 
accidents  to  men  as  to  women,  and  more  than  nine 
times  as  many  accidents  non-fatal  as  well  as  fatal  to 
men  as  to  women.  J  Thus  the  first  concern  of  the 
Women  Inspectors,  lacking  as  they  did  at  the 
beginning  knowledge  and  experience  in  these 
matters,  was  to  refer  risks  of  accident,  observed  by 
them  in  connection  with  unfenced  machinery,  to 
Men  Inspectors  in  charge  of  districts.  These  then 
took  the  action  or  gave  the  instruction  to  the 
occupiers,  and  we  were  thus  left  free  for  concentra- 
tion on  the  urgent  questions  already  touched  on, 
to  which  we  could  bring  new  and  indispensable 
contributions. 

*  Ibid.,  1903,  pp.  222-3. 

f  See  explanation  in  Introduction,  p.  12. 

{  The  figures  are  given  below  in  Chapter  VI.,  p.  196. 


140  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

The  Women  Inspectors,  however,  took  great 
interest  in  complaints  made  to  them  by  the  women 
of  dangers  and  of  accidents  actually  occurring. 
They  soon  gathered  useful  facts  by  their  own  observa- 
tion, and  the  interest  rapidly  grew  as  they  began 
to  see  the  close  connection  of  accidents  with  condi- 
tions of  labour — other  than  fencing  of  danger 
points — including  pressure  for  output,  long  hours,  \ 
and  very  low  rates  of  pay  under  the  piecework^ 
system,  as  well  as  methods  of  lighting  the  factory/ 

It  soon  appeared  to  them  probable  that  the 
effectual  prevention  of  accidents  rested  not  only 
on  skill  in  fencing,  but  on  detailed  study  of  condi- 
tions, on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  on 
responsible  supervision  of  all  conditions  by  good 
management  in  the  factories  and  workshops.  The 
knowledge  they  steadily  acquired,  through  following 
up  complaints,  of  the  immense  suffering  and  loss  to 
individual  workers  and  through  them  to  national 
y  production,  by  preventible  maiming  and  injury,  led 
them  to  give  increasing  time  to  study  of  the  subject.* 

The  important  amendment  of  the  code  governing 

(notice  of  accidents  in  the  workplace  and  their 
investigation  by  the  Inspectorate,  that  came  into 
operation  on  January  1,  1896,  brought  them  new 
ojTportilam^  It  became 

compulsory  for  every  occupier  to  keep  a  register  of 
the  accidents  occurring  in  the  factory  or  workshop 
of  which  notice  had  to  be  sent  to  the  Inspector  for 
the  district,  and  to  enter  particulars  in  the  register 
regarding  such  accidents  within  a  week  of    their 

*  Annual  Reports  of  tho  Chief  Inspector,  1896,  p.  GO; 
1900,  p.  377;  1901,  p.  170,  etc. 


PREVENTING  ACCIDENTS  141 

occurrence.  Immediate  access  to  this  register 
certainly  increased  the  value  of  an  inspection.  It 
acted  as  a  finger-post  to  special  causes  of  accidental 
injury  to  workers  in  the  particular  workplace. 
Much  more  important,  however,  for  practical 
knowledge  of  broad  means  of  preventing  accidents 
was  access  to  a  general  review  of  dominating  risks 
in  an  industry  as  a  whole.  This  opportunity  came 
to  me  and  my  staff  as  an  unforeseen  consequence 
of  the  devolution  in  1898  upon  a  Woman  Inspector 
of  district  charge  of  a  "  special  "  district  containing 
a  particularly  large  number  of  all  kinds  of  power- 
driven  and  hand  laundries,*  as  well  as  factories  and 
workshops  in  which  the  making  of  wearing  apparel 
was  carried  on.  It  was  soon  discovered  that,  so  far 
as  practical  prevention  of  accidents  went,  the 
Inspector  in  charge  of  the  special  district,  by 
receipt  of  notices  of  accidents,  by  thorough  investi- 
gation of  their  circumstances  and  of  the  complaints 
of  the  workers,  by  conferences  with  laundry  and 
other  engineers  and  study  of  safety  appliances, 
largely  made  up  for  her  initial  lack  of  training  as 
an  engineer.  Lack  of  engineering  training  was  not 
confined_jbo^Yomp,n-J^fteiifcars ;  and,  as  laundries 
lirsT^ame  under  the  Factory  Act  after  the  Women 
Inspectors  were  appointed,  a  special  opportunity 
arose  for  them  of  acquiring  useful  new  knowledge 
which  was  then  available  for  the  whole  Factory 
Department.  This  opportunity  was  seized,  the 
sympathies  of  a  considerable  number  of  laundry 
occupiers  and  engineers  were  aroused,  and  fruitful 
experiments  were  rapidly  begun  in  this  small  special 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  pp.  377-9. 


142  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

district  in  development  of  guards  for  the  preven- 
tion of  extremely  painful  and  frequently  maiming 
accidents — chiefly  to  fingers,  hands,  and  arms,  and 
largely  to  young  workers — on  ironing  machinery, 
wringers,  hydro-extractors — in  fact,  on  the  most 
dangerous  machines  in  laundry  plant.  The  com- 
paratively recent  development  of  specialised  power- 
driven  machinery  in  laundries,  and  the  incidence  of 
the  most  painful  accidents  on  young  girl  workers, 
tended  to  melt  away  opposition  (on  the  part  of 
occupiers)  to  the  Inspectors'  zeal  for  encouraging 
early  trial  of  automatically  acting  guards  for 
preventing  such  accidents.  An  ingrainepL.hjalii4.0f 
regarding  acoident(s  as_ somewhat  unavoidable  was 
not"  inlaundries,  a  legacy  from  the  past,  nor  had 
it  been  acquired  by  the  industry,  and  the  presence 
of  women  as  manageresses  and  owners  (as  well  as 
their  being  the  great  majority  of  the  workers)  led 
to  a  ready  acceptance  of  a  Woman  Inspector  as 
one  likely  to  know  something  about  the  subject. 
The  systematic  tabulation  of  classified  causes  of  all 
serious  accidents  in  laundries  soon  brought  to  their 
notice,  further  helped  to  a  reasonable  outlook  on 
the  problems  of  fencing. 

During  the  first  two  years  of  responsibility  for  this 
special  district,  with  so  many  laundries  in  it,  we 
studied  the  conditions,  the  machines"^  the  time,  and 
other  circumstances  in  the  occurrence  of  the  acci- 
dents, but  I  soon  felt  that  a  wider  body  of  statistical 
information,  from  all  over  the  country,  was  needed 
to  strengthen  our  demand  for  use  of  good  guards 
on  the  dangerous  machines.*     I  therefore  examined 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1902,  pp.  162-7. 


ACCIDENTS  IN  LAUNDRIES  143 

every  report  by  a  certifying  surgeon  to  the  Chief 
Inspector  on  an  accident  in  a  laundry  from  every 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  tabulated  these 
according  to  source  or  causation  of  the  injury  and 
according  to  age  and  sex  of  the  workers.  The 
results  were  published  in  the  Annual  Report  for 
1902,  and  the  work  of  tabulation  was  thereafter 
carried  on  for  me  by  Miss  Tracey  down  to  1914. 
At  first  the  reporting  of  the  accidents  was  incom- 
plete, and  the  total  annual  number  gradually  rose 
from  289  in  1901  to  435  in  1908,  after  which,  in 
spite  of  great  increase  of  employment  in  factory 
laundries,  and  in  use  of  dangerous  power- driven 
ironing  machinery,  the  total  number  of  accidents 
in  the  industry  annually  on  the  whole  declined,  the 
average  for  the  five  years  1909  to  1913  being  391-4. 
In  all  these  years  the  classification  of  sources  of 
accidents  was  unchanged,  the  material  risks  had  been 
rightly  inferred  at  the  outset  from  close  examination 
of  the  machines  and  from  investigation  of  individual 
accidents.  The  stress  we  laid  on  the  value  of  auto- 
matic guards  for  stopping  indrawing  rollers  (risk 
arising  from  feeding  all  kinds  of  articles  in  between 
the  rollers)  was  justified  by  the  proportionate  decline 
in  number  and  severity  of  these  accidents.  Probably 
in  few  other  industries  were  accidents  so  predomi- 
nantly caused  by  definite  danger  points  in  power- 
driven  machines.  Out  of  a  total  during  twelve  years 
of  4,235  accidents  reported  on  by  certifying  surgeons 
(including  scalds  and  burns,  which  numbered  379), 
2,648  were  caused  by  indrawing  rollers  of  ironing 
and  wringing  machines,  and  an  abnormally  high 
proportion  affected   girls  under   eighteen  years   of 


144  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

age — who  were  so  largely  employed  in  machine- 
ironing.*  These  facts  were  brought  out  at  a 
conference  of  the  Department  with  the  laundry 
trade  in  1910,  at  an  interesting  exhibition  of 
laundry  machinery,  where  the  latest  developments 
in  machinery  and  guards  could  be  studied.  After 
this  conference  a  memorandum  standardising  fencing 
of  laundry  machinery  was  issued  to  the  trade. | 
Definite  steps  in  this  direction  had  been  made 
possible  by  the  concentrated  work  of  the  Women 
Inspectors  on  the  industry,  first  when  they  were 
definitely  instructed  to  follow  up  fencing  in  laundries 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  secondly  when,  from 
1908,  all  accidents  affecting  women  and  girls  in 
laundries  were  referred  to  the  Senior  Women 
Inspectors  in  the  various  divisions  for  investigation 
and  the  necessary  action. 

The  industry  was  not  one  in  which  the  general 
risks  of  accident  were  high ;  the  total  accidents  and 
the  accident  rate  were  small  compared  with  those 
of  other  industries.  Without  such  concentrated 
team-work  on  the  question,  the  predominant  risks 
would  probably  long  have  escaped  effective  observa- 
tion and  control,  and  the  painful  and  maiming 
accidents  to  many  young  girls  would  have  been 
obscured  by  the  greater  roll  of  accidents  in  other 
i industries;  they  would  have  failed  to  receive  the 
effectual   check   that   they   in   fact   did   receive   in 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  pp.  82-3. 

•j-  Published  as  Form  414,  price  Id.:  "Memorandum  on 
Fencing  of  Machinery  and  Prevention  of  Accidents  in 
Laundries."  Second  edition  issued  in  1913.  No  revision 
has  been  found  necessary  since  that  date. 


FENCING  IN  LAUNDRIES  145 

consequence  of  the  assignment  to  this  branch  of  the 
Inspectorate  of  a  special  opportunity  and  responsi- 
bility in  relation  to  the  trade.  It  is  an  interesting 
illustration  of  the  value  of  _sjjgcinl  wntk  on  selected 
trades,  and  raises  the  question  whether  such  special 
work  is  not  an  adjunct  that  is  indispensable  for 
efficiency  in  a  system  of  administration  by  area  or 
territorial  districts. 

Important  prosecutions  were  taken  from  time  to 
time,  and  repeatedly  penal  compensation  was  ob- 
tained and  applied  to  the  benefit  of  workers  injured 
through  neglect  of  the  occupier  to  provide  or  main- 
tain good  guards.  In  1913  an  unusually  interesting 
prosecution,  of  importance  for  Scottish  laundry 
workers,  was  taken  by  the  late  Miss  Vines  in  the 
Edinburgh  Sheriff  Court,  for  a  failure  to  fence 
securely  the  intake  of  a  calender  in  consequence  of 
which  neglect  a  young  girl  had  lost  the  use  of  her 
hand.*  It  was  keenly  contested,  and  Miss  Vines's 
account  of  the  hearing  may  well  be  remembered  here : 


A 


"  A  plea  of  '  not  guilty '  was  tendered,  and 
evidence  was  led  at  considerable  length — I  had 
eleven  witnesses — as  to  the  question  of  secure 
fencing.  At  the  time  of  the  accident  the  feed  of 
the  calender  was  fenced  only  by  a  fixed  bar  guard, 
while  our  contention  was  as  to  the  necessity  of 
the  provision  of  an  automatic  guard.  We  had 
expert  evidence  from  two  witnesses,  one  the 
member  of  a  large  firm  of  laundry  engineers,  the 
other  Miss  Perry,  whose  evidence,  owing  to  her 
university  degree  in  engineering,  carried  con- 
siderable weight.  The  advocate  for  the  respondents 
also  had  two  expert  witnesses.     In  my  argument 

*   Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  pp.  84  and  110. 


146  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

I  referred  to  the  case  of  Schofield  v.  Schunk  (1855) 
24  L.  T.  (o.s.),  253,  in  which  it  is  laid  down  that 
the  machinery  must  be  fenced  according  to  the  best 
method  known  at  the  time,  not  merely  in  the 
manner  usual  in  the  best  regulated  factories  in  the 
district.  After  a  hearing  of  some  hours  the  Sheriff 
convicted,  saying  that  he  thought  it  clear  from  the 
evidence  that  the  fence  consisting  of  a  fixed  bar 
was  not  of  a  satisfactory  nature,  and  ,that  an 
improved  type  was  now  largely  used." 


A  similar  responsibility  and  opportunity  arose  in 
the  wholesale    clothing    trades,    but    the    accident 
risks  were  far  smaller  and  chiefly  due  to  "  trans- 
mission machinery  " — e.g.,  shafting,  driving  bands 
and  pulleys  to  sewing  machines,  found  also  in  many 
other  trades — these  risks  being  already  well  known. 
The  one  really  new  contribution  there  made  by  the 
studies    of   the  Women   Inspectors   lay  in   needle- 
puncturing  accidents  with  septic  results,  from  the 
use  of  power-driven  sewing  machines  driven  at  a 
very  high  speed,  2,000  to  3,000  stitches  a  minute. 
Analysis  of  reported  accidents  showed  that  in  1907 
35  per  cent,  of  the  total  accidents  to  women  and 
girls  in  clothing  factories  arose  from  this  cause,  and 
of  these  not  far  short  of  one-fifth  resulted  in  septic 
poisoning  and  consequent  great  loss  of  time.     Often 
the  needle  has  to  be  removed  surgically,  and  some- 
times  X-rays   applied.      A  needle   may  enter   the 
finger  several  times  before  the  hand  can  be  with- 
drawn,  and  serious  injury  sometimes  results.     So 
far  no  guard  had  been  devised  to  prevent  these 
accidents.     Next   year   over    40   per   cent,    of   the 
accidents  to  women  and  girls  in  clothing  factories 
were  due  to  this  cause,  and  in  relation  to  these  and 


NEEDLE  PUNCTURES,  FIRST  AID      147 

other  injuries  the  importance  ™f  okiiinri  gg^  n^  was 
brought  out.    In  1909  again  the  very  great  loss  of 
working  time  and  health  through  these  accidents, 
at  first  classed  as  "  slight,"  was  illustrated,  and  the 
extra  urgency  of  first  aid  where  invention  of  pre- 
ventive safeguards  against  the  accidents  was  still 
lacking  was  further  pressed  home.     In  one  large 
clothing  factory  seven  out  of  twelve  accidents  were 
of  this  nature,  and  in  even  the  slightest  of  them  the 
workers  had  been  absent  from  work  several  weeks.* 
Enquiry  of  a  systematic  kind  was  made  into  the 
arrangements  provided  by  the  employers  for  render- 
ing first  aid  at  the  works  from  this  time  on  by  the 
Women   Inspectors — not   only   when   investigating 
these,  but  all  kinds  of  accidents.     It  was  found  that 
the  very  enquiry  and  the  recording  of  results  on 
the  point  stimulated  emjuloyers  already  doing  good 
work  in  this  direction,  and  that  it  aroused  others 
to  a  new  interest  in  the  matter.     Miss  Whitlock's 
investigations  showed  how  greatly  lack  of  knowledge 
of  first  aid  increased  suffering  to  the  injured  person. 
For  example,   "  a  child's  head  was  badly  scalded 
with  boiling  starch,  and  the  wound  made  worse  by 
the  forewoman  immediately  bathing  it  in  cold  water. 
When  a  young  woman  was  scalped  in  a  clothing 
factory,  time  was  lost  in  getting  her  attended  to, 
for  no  one  knew  the  quickest  way  in  which  to  get 
in  touch  with  the  ambulance  authorities ;  neither  did 

*  By  1911  the  attention  directed  to  the  matter  at  last 
produced  "  an  apparently  satisfactory  finger  guard  for 
the  needle,"  and  in  1912  two  more  guards  were  devised.  . 
Such  guards  had  their  main  effect  where  young  machinists 
were  trained  to  their  use  from  the  beginning.  For  adult 
trained  workers  their  effectiveness  was  slight. 

11 


148  DANGEROUS  PROCESSES 

anyone  think  of  removing  the  scalp  from  the  over- 
head shafting  until  an  hour  after  the  accident,  so 
that  by  the  time  it  arrived  at  the  infirmary  it  was 
too  cold  to  treat  in  the  usual  way  in  such  cases."* 

Tin  cutting,  pen  making,  metallic  capsule  making, 
bottle  washing,  and  many  other  processes  furnished 
for  our  observation  cases  of  septic  poisoning,  follow- 
ing relatively  slight  accidents,  which  strengthened 
our  appeal  for  systematic  development  of  first  aid 
in  industry.  It  was  wartime  pressure  for  output  tha£\ 
ultimately  clinched  our  argument  as  to  its  value  f  rony 
the  standpoint  of  production  as  well  as  of  humanity^ 

One  example  out  of  many  may  be  cited  to  illus- 
trate how  guards  preventing  accidents  were  secured 
sj^stematically  on  a  machine  when  its  danger  was 
brought  to  our  notice.  Teazle-brushing  machines 
in  hosiery  factories  thus  arrested  the  attention  of 
Miss  Squire  and  Miss  Tracey  almost  simultaneously. 
Miss  Squire  was  interested  in  complaints  of  dust, 
Miss  Tracey  was  engaged  in  tabulating  accidents 
affecting  women  and  girls  in  the  hosiery  trade  for 
my  information.  The  former  saw  the  points  of 
danger  apparent  in  the  machine  which  was  new  to 
her,  and  heard  of  severe  accidents  from  the  indrawing 
teazle-covered  rollers  for  the  brushing  of  hosiery. 
Miss  Tracey  presented  the  fact  that  seven  out  of 
the  fourteen  reported  accidents  frcm  this  machine 
in  1906  were  "  severe."  Guards  were  asked  for 
through  the  District  Inspector,  and  in  1909  I  was 
glad  to  see  that  accidents  had  been  consequently 
reduced  to  three  for  the  year.f 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  p.  142. 
t  Ibid.,  1906,  pp.  207-8.  and  1909,  p.  1  10. 


CHAPTER  V 

EMPLOYMENT    OF    MOTHERS;    YOUNG    WORKERS; 
CHARITABLE   INSTITUTIONS 

"  Every  wise  woman  buildeth  her  house." 

"  Give  your  women  economic  freedom,  assure  them 
access  to  the  sources  of  culture  and  you  can  safely  leave 
eugenic  experimentation  to  them"  ("Interpretations  and 
Forecasts,"  by  Victor  Branford,  1914). 

Hitherto  this  survey  of  women's  life  in  the  factory 
and  workshop  has  simply  accepted  the  fact  oft 
productive  labour  by  women  and  its  clear  social  and  I 
economic  necessity.  While  admitting  the  existence 
of  differences  and  handicaps,  physiological  and 
social,  that  in  part  distinguish  them  from  male 
industrial  workers,  we  have  only,  in  one  instance, 
touched  on  the  influence  of  marriage  and  maternity 
on  their  employment.  The  sinister  secondary  effects 
of  lead  poisoning  on  maternal  functions  inevitably 
raised  question  of  factors  that,  in  a  civilised  com- 
munity, must  place  certain  limits  or  conditions  on 
complete  liberty  of  women's  employment  in  factory 
production  as  hitherto  carried  on.  This,  already 
long  recognised  in  the  United  Kingdom  in  regula- 
tions excluding  women  and  young  persons  from  v"'' 
some  of  the  most  dangerous  lead  processes,  has 
been  followed  or  extended  in  other  industrial 
countries  since  the  Washington  Convention. 

149 


150  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

To  one  will  deny,  said  the  Report  of  the  Women's 
^Employment  Committee,  1919,  that  "  woman  should 
be  guarded  from  strain,  from  accident  and  racial 
poison,  to  a  greater  degree  than  man  is  guarded," 
and  that  report  fairly  indicated  standards  and  tests 
suitability  in  occupations  for  women. 

In  this  present  chapter  we  pass  from  the  general 
human  considerations  controlling  industrial  condi- 
tions over  to  special  groups  of  persons,  where  the 
"  human  machine  "  to  be  safeguarded  can  least  of 
all  be  regarded  simply  as  an  economic,  producing 
unit.  Here  the  interest  of  the  community  as  well 
as  of  the  individual  requires  consideration  from  a 
new  angle  of  vision. 

Children,  the  earliest  objects  of  humanitarian  aims 
in  the  factory  system,  came  first  under  a  Factory 
Act  in  1802  in  certain  textile  factories;  adult 
women  first  in  1844.  Not  until  1891  (after  the 
fcerlih  Conference  in  1890)  was  any  provision  what-\ 
ever  made  in  this  country  for  obviating  the  necessity  J 
of  employment  of  a  woman  too  early  after  childbirtly 
— in  a  factory  system  such  as  that  we  have  been 
considering  in  previous  chapters.  And  then  it  came 
only  in  the  form  of  a  prohibition  of  employment: 
"  An  occupier  of  a  factory  or  workshop  shall  not 
knowingly  allow  a  woman  to  be  employed  therein 
within  four  weeks  after  she  has  given  birth  to  a 
child."*  Effects,  not  causes,  seem  alone  to  have 
been  held  in  view ;  what  was  to  become  of  the  woman, 
without  other  resources,  seeking  employment  at  such 
a  time,  was  left  to  be  sufficiently  disclosed  by  the 

*  Factory  Act,  1891,  sect.  17;  later  sect.  61  of  the  Act 
of  1901. 


GROUPS  OF  PROTECTED  WORKERS     151 

Women  Factory  Inspectors,  who  from  1896  onwards 
tried  to  give  effect  to  the  prohibition  by  warnings 
and  prosecutions  of  the  occupier  so  far  as  he  could 
be  shown  to  be  legally  responsible  for  infringements. 

Inmates  of  charitable  and  reformatory  institu- 
tions, engaged  in  production  or  manual  labour  of  the 
nature  covered  by  the  Factory  Acts  and  not  already 
under  Government  inspection  (as  in  workhouses, 
prisons,  certified  homes,  etc.),  first  seem  to  have 
come,  somewhat  accidentally,  under  serious  con- 
sideration in  connection  with  these  Acts  through 
proposals  to  include  laundries  within  their  scope. 
For  laundry  work  was  by  far  the  most  general 
industrial  occupation  in  charitable  and  reformatory 
institutions — where  the  work  was  done  not  for  the 
institution  itself  but  for  outside  clients,  although 
not  carried  on  by  way  of  trade,  and  where  the 
inmates  were  not  working  under  a  contract  of 
service  or  apprenticeship.  Occupiers  of  ordinary 
commercial  laundries  were  willing  to  be  included 
within  the  Act  only  if  these  institutions  were 
also  included.  The  opposition  of  the  institutions 
was,  however,  sufficient  to  secure  their  exclusion 
from  the  Act  of  1895,  which  in  some  degree  covered 
commercial  laundries;  they  remained  outside  until 
partially  brought  in  by  the  Act  of  1907,  after 
we  had  for  some  years  inspected  convent  laundries 
on  a  voluntary  basis.  Opposition  of  the  managers 
melted  away  steadily,  as  the  advantages  of  friendly 
advisory  inspections  were  experienced. 

For  all  but  the  last  of  these  three  classes  of  specially 
protected  workers,  the  legal  or  the  administrative 
position  has  substantially  changed  at  the  close  of  the 


152  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

period  1893  to  1921.  And  most  of  all  has  it  changed 
in  the  care  of  child-bearing  women  employed  in 
{•Industry,  who  were  before  1911  completely  dependent 
on  the  Woman  Factory  Inspector  for  disclosure 
of  evidence  on  their  position.  The  change  in  the 
administrative  point  of  view  is  most  quickly  realised 
when  one  recalls  the  fact  that  responsibility  for 
applying  the  prohibition  of  employment  in  factories 
and  workshops  of  women  after  childbirth  has  in 
1921  been  transferred  from  the  Home  Office  to  the 
Ministry  of  Health  by  Order  of  His  Majesty  in 
Council.  It  is  thus  formally  recognised  as  a  "  matter 
affecting  and  incidental  to  the  health  of  the  people." 
The  cases  of  employment  within  four  weeks  of 
childbirth  were  frequent  in  our  experience.  As 
it  was  generally  extreme  poverty  or  desertion  or 
illness  of  the  husband  that  drove  mothers  back  to 
work,  and  the  prohibition  was  well  known  (being 
included  in  the  official  abstract  of  the  Acts  affixed 
in  the  workplace),  they  would  in  some  way  conceal 
the  date  of  birth  from  the  occupier  or  manager, 
or  sometimes  change  the  place  of  employment. 
Thus  in  comparatively  few  instances  could  any 
legal  action  be  taken  at  all;  even  where  it  could, 
the  painful  dilemma  of  the  suffering  woman  became 
evident. 

The  first  case  taken  into  court  under  Section  17  of 
1891  was  in  the  year  1897,  by  Miss  Squire.  It  was 
a  clear  case  for  testing  the  effect  of  the  section, 
and  it  revealed  much.  The  mother,  working  in  a 
textile  mill,  had  been  sent  for  by  the  foreman, 
who  was  short  of  workers,  on  the  ninth  day  after 
her  confinement,  although  he  had  been  informed  of 


EMPLOYMENT  AND  CHILDBIRTH      153 

the  reason  of  her  absence  on  the  day  she  left. 
Although  she  made  some  attempt  to  screen  her 
employers  when  called  as  a  witness,  she  was  dis- 
missed from  their  employment,  after  they  had  been 
convicted  and  fined.  She  obtained  employment 
from  one  of  the  magistrates  soon  after  he  had  heard 
the  case,  and  this  relieved  her  immediate  need. 
The  effect  of  this  dismissal  on  the  minds  of  the 
other  workers  remained.* 

In  1898  old  and  new  difficulties  attending  the 
application  of  this  section  again  made  action  diffi- 
cult or  impossible.  A  laundry  visited  on  a  com- 
plaint of  infringement  of  the  section  yielded  only 
the  information  that  the  woman  was  at  home,  the 
regulation  well  known,  and  "  as  soon  as  it  was 
permissible  she  would  return  to  work."  The 
Inspector,  wishing  to  make  sure  of  all  the  facts, 
"  went  straightway  to  see  the  woman  in  her  home, 
and  found  her  in  the  act  of  doing  heavy  washing 
for  the  laundry  in  question."  The  occupier  was 
only  legally  responsible  for  knowingly  employing 
the  woman  in  his  laundry  within  four  weeks  of 
childbirth,  accordingly  he  had  "  sent  the  work  to  be 
done  in  the  home.  The  laundry  was  clean  and  the 
surroundings  ...  in  point  of  fatigue-saving  appli- 
ances incomparably  superior  "  to  those  in  which  the 
woman  was  found.  "  Her  husband  was  a  labourer, 
she  had  four  living  children,  and  the  entire  family 
inhabited  two  rooms;  the  woman  was  washing  over 
a  tub  raised  on  two  stools  in  one  of  the  rooms,  a 
small  paved  and  drained  yard  lay  at  the  back;  it 
was  a  rainy  day,  and  she  had  pulled  the  tub  into 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1897,  pp.  96  and  107. 


154  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

the  room  to  be  under  cover  from  the  wet;  she 
dragged  it  into  the  yard  to  empty  when  needful."* 
More  often  the  difficulty  of  taking  action  turned 
on  the  impossibility  of  proving  knowledge  of  facts 
on  the  part  of  the  occupier,  a  knowledge  which  in 
such  a  matter  it  was  only  natural  he  should  avoid. 
In  any  case  it  was  shortly  discovered  that  a  young 
mother  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  was  not  covered  by 
the  section,  being  not  a  "  woman,"  as  defined  in 
the  Act  (i.e.,  a  person  of  eighteen  years  and  over), 
but  a  "  young  person."  These  enquiries  soon  drew 
my  attention  to  the  high  rate  of  infant  mortality  in 
districts  where  women  were  largely  employed  in 
heavy  labouring  work,  such  as  brick  making  in  the 
Stourbridge  area,  and  the  galvanised  bucket  industry 
in  the  Lye  district,  and  some  enquiries  were  made 
to  learn  how  far  such  work  affected  infant  life. 

In  1902  a  conviction,  with  penalty,  was  again 
secured  in  one  of  the  instances  of  re-employment 
of  a  woman  within  four  weeks  of  childbirth.  In 
another  case  of  re-employment — this  time  within 
a  fortnight  of  childbirth — in  a  wholesale  clothing 
factory,  although  a  deplorable  state  of  affairs  was 
disclosed,  action  was  impossible  owing  to  the  entire 
lack  of  evidence  of  responsibility  for  supervision 
anywhere  in  the  place.  The  Inspector  took  occasion 
to  press  home  the  need  of  superintendence  by  a 
competent  woman,  which  in  this  case  was  promised 
by  the  employer.  She  found  that  young  single 
women  going  to  the  workhouse  for  a  confinement 
were  usually  discharged  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight 
if  their  state  of  health  made  it  possible,  with  the 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1S98,  p.  181. 


ADMINISTRATIVE  DIFFICULTIES       155 

result  that  their  re-employment  within  three  weeks 
was  practically  unavoidable. 

The  whole  position  was,  as  Miss  Squire  put  it  in 
1897,  that  "Section  17  of  1891,  although  of  so 
great  importance  to  the  community  no  less  than] 
the  individual,  must  remain  for  the  most  part  a  I 
dead  letter  owing  to  the  difficulty  of  proving  the  I 
employer's  knowledge  of  all  the  circumstances,  as  » 
well  as  for  other  obvious  reasons."* 

A  welcome  opportunity  for  wider  dissemination 
of  knowledge  and  understanding  of  the  whole 
problem  of  employment  of  mothers  arose  through 
the  appointment  of  the  inter-Departmental  Com- 
mittee on  Physical  Deterioration  in  September, 
1903.  An  invitation  was  extended  to  me  to  give 
oral  evidence  on  the  effects  of  factory  and  workshop 
employment  on  the  health  of  women  and  girls, 
which  I  did  at  some  length.  Fuller  information  was 
sought  by  the  Committee  on  the  effect  of  industrial 
employment  of  mothers  both  on  themselves  and 
their  infants.  By  the  help  of  my  colleagues,  I  set 
intensive  study  of  the  matter  on  foot  in  three 
separate  and  distinctive  industrial  centres  for 
women's  employment:  in  Dundee  (jute  trade),  in 
Lancashire,  in  Preston,  Burnley,  and  Blackburn 
(cotton  trade),  in  the  Staffordshire  Potteries,  in 
Hanley  and  Longton  (earthenware  and  china  trade). 
Two  of  these  towns,  Dundee  and  Preston,  were 
particularly  characterised  by  an  absence  of  employ- 1 
ment  for  men  of  the  same  class  as  the  women  sol 
largely  employed.  In  all  the  centres  of  study 
infantile  mortality  was  high,  although  not  higher 
*  Ibid.,  1897,  p.  107. 


156  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

than  rates  to  be  found  elsewhere — e.g.,  in  mining 
centres  where  mothers  are  not  industrially  employed. 
Widely  varying  conditions  in  local  sanitation  and 
housing  obtained  in  these  towns.  Wide  variation 
also  was  present  in  nature  of  the  industrial  work 
done  by  the  women,  speed  and  pressure  of  work, 
length  of  daily  hours,  presence  of  dust  or  lead  in 
the  processes,  and  other  circumstances. 

The  main  effect  of  this  enquiry,  with  the  following 
up  of  many  cases  of  re-employment  of  mothers 
after  childbirth,  was  to  establish  more  clearly  than 
ever  before  that  such  re-employment  was  not,  as  had 
hitherto  been  often  alleged,  largely  caused  by  the 
women's  preference  for  factory  over  domestic  life, 
but  by  the  pressure  of  poverty,  or  actual  want,  on 
the  mothers.  Much  help  was  given  by  officers 
of  the  local  health  authorities  in  making  the 
enquiry. 

In  1904  I  presented  to  the  Committee  a  memo- 
randum on  "  Employment  of  Mothers  in  Factories 
and  Workshops,"  containing  full  details,  and  what 
the  Committee  described  as  a  "  wealth  of  informa- 
tion "  from  the  three  Inspectors,  Miss  Paterson, 
Miss  .Squire,  and  Miss  Martindale,  who  had  carried 
out  my  scheme  of  enquiry.  The  Committee  gave 
full  publicity  to  the  results  in  the  memorandum, 
including  it  as  an  appendix  in  their  report,  besides 
favourably  commenting  on  its  conclusions.  They 
further  definitely  recommended  fuller  investigation, 
on  the  lines  suggested,  into  infant  mortality  rates; 
locally,  for  particular  areas  in  industrial  towns,  and 
into  general  infant  mortality  rates  for  selected 
industries  throughout  the  country,  and  the  speci- 


ENQUIRIES  AND  RECOMMENDATIONS  157 

fying  of  the  occupation  of  all  mothers  (married  or 
unmarried)  in  the  Registrar-General's  records.  They 
also  recommended  a  strengthening  of  the  prohibition 
of  employment  within  four  weeks,  either  by  throwing 
onus  of  proof  on  the  employer  or  by  requiring  a 
medical  certificate  from  the  mother. 

The  Committee  attached  great  importance  to 
observations  of  the  Inspectors  in  the  memorandum 
on  the  stress  and  strain  involved,  through  many 
existing  conditions  in  factory  life,  "  in  the  employ- 
ment of  women  from  girlhood,  all  through  married 
life,  and  through  child-bearing";  they  specially 
noted  the  fact  that  when  decreasing  physical 
capacity  brought  the  prospective  mother  "  at 
least  some  relief  at  the  hands  of  the  manager  of  the 
mill  and  she  is  sent  away,"  it  is  often  only  "  to 
take  up  the  equally  unsuitable  occupation  of  char- 
woman or  scrubber."  No  general  notion  had  then 
arisen,  or  at  least  it  had  not  been  publicly  expressed, 
that  national  responsibility  for  release  of  child- 
bearing  women  from  wage-paid  employment  should 
be  recognised  by  the  provision  of  some  form  of 
maintenance  at  the  time  of  their  greatest  need. 
The  Committee,  on  this  financial  point,  only  in- 
cluded in  their  recommendations  a  suggestion  that 
"  charitable  efforts  in  manufacturing  towns  might 
be  directed  towards  endowing  and  maintaining 
insurance  organisations  to  which  employees,  assisted 
by  voluntary  subscriptions,  could  contribute  while 
in  work,  and  from  which  they  might  receive  assist- 
ance during  a  confinement  and  afterwards."  I  had 
pointed,  in  my  memorandum,  to  the  experience  at 
Mulhouse  in  Alsace  that  organisation  of  a  maternity 


158  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

fund  by  manufacturers,  to  which  both  employer 
and  employed  contributed,  had  resulted  in  a  reduc- 
tion of  infant  mortality  by  half.  I  had  also  sug- 
gested that  "  whether  by  local  trade  effort,  or 
larger  national  effort,  provident  insurance  of  the 
kind  might  be  expected  in  time  to  eliminate  the 
cases  where  infant  lives  are  lost  .  .  .  and  needless 
suffering  caused  to  hard-working,  valuable  mothers 
by  total  absence  of  skilled  attendance."  I  had 
also  laid  stress  on  the  need  for  fundamental  re- 
organisation of  antiquated  charities,  in  harmony 
"  with  increased  scientific  knowledge,"  and  with 
the  "  changed  economic  conditions  of  women's 
lives." 

On  this  side  the  earliest  help  that  came  was,  of 
course,  through  the  National  Health  Insurance  Act 
of  1911.  In  1904,  and  onwards  down  to  1913, 
Women  Factory  Inspectors  continued  to  gather  and 
to  present  information  on  this  subject,  which  never 
seemed  to  them  less  poignant  in  the  details,  though 
it  took  seven  years  to  issue  in  any  provision  for 
the  sufferers.  A  summary  of  all  that  we  learned, 
as  Miss  H.  F.  Cohen  said  when  she  prepared  such 
a  summary  from  my  Annual  Reports  for  the 
Women's  Employment  Committee  in  1919,  "  gives 
only  a  faint  idea  of  the  state  of  things — it  is  only 
the  cumulative  effect  of  instance  after  instance 
which  enables  one  to  realise  the  impotence  of  the 
law." 

In  1904,  in  twenty-one  cases  of  employment 
within  four  weeks  of  childbirth  investigated  in 
Scotland  by  two  Women  Inspectors,  only  three  were 
found  suitable    for  proceedings,   and  a  conviction 


IMPOTENCE  OF  THE  LAW  159 

was  recorded  in  only  one.  "  The  others  were 
dismissed,  one  without  trial,  on  the  ground  that  a 
Limited  Liability  Company  could  not  be  charged 
with  the  offence;  the  other  on  the  ground  that  the 
woman  was  not  "  knowingly  "  employed,  although 
it  was  proved  that  the  reason  for  leaving  the  mill 
was  known  to  the  foreman,  who  re-engaged  her 
without  enquiry.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the 
woman  did  not  return  to  the  same  factory  as  that 
in  which  she  worked  before  confinement."  In  a 
very  bad  case  of  re-employment  at  one  and  the 
same  works  the  woman,  working  under  a  contractor, 
was  employed  in  very  laborious  work,  the  setting 
and  drawing  of  kilns.  The  manager  of  the  works 
ordered  the  contractor  to  send  her  home,  as  she 
was  obviously  not  in  a  fit  condition  to  do  the  work. 
Ten  days  after  the  child's  birth  she  was  re-engaged 
by  the  manager  who  had  ordered  her  to  be  sent 
home,  and  employed  at  the  same  place  in  loading 
wheelbarrows  at  the  canal  bank  and  other  work. 
"  Sixteen  days  after  its  birth  the  child  died.  .  .  . 
The  occupier,  who  goes  daily  to  the  works,  en- 
deavoured to  shift  the  legal  responsibility  on  to  the 
manager,  the  latter  on  to  the  contractor.  Until 
the  Woman  Inspector  put  the  matter  before  them 
in  what  was  evidently  a  new  light,  it  had  not 
occurred  to  anyone  that  it  was  worth  consideration, 
or  that  even  a  legal,  let  alone  a  moral  responsibility, 
rested  on  anyone."*  In  Lancashire,  in  the  same 
year,  one  out  of  many  cases  of  too  early  re-employ- 
ment was  taken  into  court.  The  fact  that  the 
mother  was  back  at  her  loom  fourteen  days  after 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1904,  pp.  273-4. 


160  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

the  birth  of  the  child  was  proved ;  it  was  also  proved 
that  the  manager  and  tackier,  as  well  as  her  fellow - 
workers,  knew  the  reason  for  the  weaver's  absence, 
but  the  case  was  dismissed  (after  long  and  earnest 
deliberation  by  the  magistrate),  because  the  manager 
had  not  had  the  simple  enquiry  made  as  to  the  age 
of  the  child,  and  therefore  did  not  "  knowingly  " 
allow  her  to  be  employed.  In  this  case  the  reason 
for  the  return  was  poverty,  the  husband  being  out 
of  work,  and  the  woman  had  been  alone  and  un- 
tended  at  the  birth  of  her  child.  The  futility  of 
the  unamended  law  for  the  protection  of  industrial 
mothers  against  pressure  of  either  poverty  or 
negligence  was  more  than  established. 

"  Some  of  the  most  pathetic  incidents  came  to 
one's  knowledge,"  says  Miss  Paterson,  in  some 
notes  written  at  my  request  for  this  book,  "in  the 
administration  of  the  section  which  requires  absence 
of  mothers  from  work  for  the  short  period  of  four 
weeks  after  the  birth  of  a  child,  for  the  poverty 
or  the  fear  of  permanent  loss  of  employment  which 
drives  her  to  cut  short  her  time  for  recovery  generally 
means  that  she  is  indeed  in  straits.  Customs  vary 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  it  is  Scotland 
that  is  in  my  mind  chiefly  when  the  figure  comes 
before  me  of  the  work-worn  woman  who  appeared 
to  have  a  choice  to  make  whether  she  would  go  out 
to  work  or  stay  at  home  and  work,  but  who  had 
in  reality  no  alternative  but  to  earn,  at  once,  what 
she  could.  '  If  he  could  bring  in  a  pound  a  week 
constant,'  said  the  wife  of  an  unskilled  labourer  to 
me,  '  I  would  never  think  of  going  out, '  and  I 
believe  this  represents  the  feeling  of  the  Scottish 
married  women,  though  they  would  not  all  put  their 
minimum  at  so  modest  a  figure." 


PRESSURE  OF  POVERTY  161 

In  the  returns  of  persons  employed  in  factories 
and  workshops  for  1907  the  first  attempt  was  made 
to  obtain  official  figures  to  show  the  extent  of 
employment  of  married  women  in  industry.  The 
information  could  only  be  obtained  by  voluntary 
returns,  which  were  in  many  cases  not  forthcoming. 
On  the  figures  so  obtained  it  appeared  that  in 
textile  factories  24-1  per  cent,  were  married,  71-8  per 
cent,  unmarried,  and  4-1  per  cent,  widowed;  in  non- 
textile  factories  16-3  per  cent,  were  married,  79-3  per 
cent,  unmarried,  and  4-4  per  cent,  widowed.  A  high 
proportion  of  power-driven  laundries  made  the  return, 
and  in  these  28  per  cent,  of  the  women  were  married. 

The  worst  cases  of  too  early  employment  of 
mothers  did  not,  however,  necessarily  appear  in  the 
industries  that  were  most  characteristically  women's, 
but  rather  in  poor  or  underpaid  industries  and  in 
towns  or  districts  where  women  were  largely  em- 
ployed without  a  sufficient  balance  of  men's  staple 
industries  to  enable  the  husband  and  father  to  be 
the  main  breadwinner  of  the  family.  Any  high 
degree  of  unemployment  for  the  latter,  of  course, 
immediately  affected  the  security  of  the  mother's 
support  at  the  time  of  child-bearing.  Many  of  the 
worst  examples  of  too  early  employment  after 
childbirth  came  primarily  from  that  cause. 

"I  know,"  wrote  Miss  Paterson  in  1907,  "of 
no  more  tragic  figure  than  that  of  the  toil-worn 
woman  striving  ...  to  do  the  work  of  two  persons 
with,  as  her  background,  the  unemployed  or  in- 
sufficiently employed  man  .  .  .  desolate  and 
oppressed  are  the  words  which  seem  then  to 
describe  her  the  best."* 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1907,  p.  184. 


162  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

Some  of  the  very  worst  examples  came  to  our 
knowledge  in  the  five  years  preceding  the  modest 
relief  that  came  for  maternity  through  the  National 
Health  Insurance  Act  of  1911.  In  that  year,  at 
the  Congress  of  the  Royal  Sanitary  Institute  at 
Belfast,  Miss  Martindale  gave  an  address  on  Hygiene 
and  Industrial  Employment,  in  which  she  stated 
that  in  that  city  she  had  "  come  across  women 
returning  to  work  of  a  hard  manual  nature,  entailing 
hours  of  standing,  within  ten  days,  and  even  four 
days  of  their  confinement."  She  was  convinced 
that  "  no  woman  would  return  to  work  within  the 
month  if  it  were  not  poverty  which  compelled  her 
to  do  so.  As  one  poor  tired  woman  remarked, 
'  Could  I  remain  away  from  work  for  more  than  a 
fortnight  with  five  children  under  six  years  of  age 
starving  at  home  V  "  The  emigration  of  men  in 
Ireland  often  threw  the  burden  of  breadwinning 
on  to  the  women. 

To  those  who  wish  to  understand,  even  partially, 
the  extent  of  suffering  and  injury  endured  by  poor 
working  mothers  before  any  national  attempt  was 
made  to  help  them  at  the  time  of  childbirth,  I  can 
only  say  that  the  subject  must  be  further  studied 
in  the  section  of  my  Annual  Reports  from  1907  to 
1911  dealing  with  employment  of  women  before 
and  after  childbirth.*  The  monotonous  recital, 
year  after  year,  of  facts  revealed  by  complaints 
investigated  can  alone  give  any  idea  of  the  matter. 
One  characteristic  example  must  close  the  recital 
here.     The  occupier  of  the  factory  had  not  "  know- 

*  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  for  the  years 
named. 


MOTHERS  AND  CHILDREN  163 

ingly  "  re-employed  the  mother  within  the  four 
weeks'  limit;  the  woman's  husband,  a  carter,  had 
been  out  of  work  seven  weeks  before  the  confinement, 
and  the  Guardians  gave  relief  in  money  and  kind 
for  fourteen  days  after  the  birth.  The  third  week 
they  refused  an  application  for  continuance  of  the 
relief,  and  the  woman  returned  to  her  employment 
— her  husband  being  still  workless.  The  Inspector 
asked  the  health  visitor  to  interest  herself  in  the 
matter  and  secure  assistance  if  possible  for  the 
woman.  Section  61  of  the  Act  of  1901  only  took 
effect  generally  by  bringing  to  our  knowledge  facts 
that  might  otherwise  be  overlooked,  and  prevented 
inconsiderate  employers  from  directly  requiring 
women  to  return  to  work  too  soon  after  the  birth 
of  a  child.*  Ultimately,  when  due  care  has  been 
secured  for  the  poorest  child-bearing  woman,  the 
tale  of  their  past  suffering  and  neglect  will  seem  a 
terrible  and  incredible  thing. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  young  worker  in  industry. 
Strong  though  the  appeal  of  this  subject  was  to  the 
Women  Inspectors — taking  much  of  their  time  and 
thought — in  a  sense  it  lies  outside  the  limits  of  this 
book,  and  it  is  far  too  great  for  adequate  notice 
in  a  fraction  of  a  chapter.  A  few  illustrations  of 
ways  in  which  we  came  in  touch  with  industrial 
employment  of  children  must  suffice.  "  Children 
in  the  factory  "  is  a  thought  that  irresistibly  carries 
memory  back  to  tragic  past  wrongdoing,  in  cruel 
overstrain  and  misuse  of  children's  forces  that  no 
one  of  our  race  or  nationality  can  cheerfully  recall 
to    mind.     Yet    we    are    bidden    by    the    foremost 

*  See  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1909,  p.  159. 

12 


164  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

historian  of  the  factory  system,  Mr.  Whately  Cooke- 
Taylor,  never  to  suffer  the  story  to  be  forgotten  lest 
its  pitiful  warnings  against  the  blinding  power  of 
false  doctrine  should  also  die  out.* 

The  earliest  legal  remedies  for  the  worst  evils  of 
child  labour  under  the  factory  system  were  threshed 
out  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  by 
English  men  themselves,  long  before  it  was  imagin- 
able that  women  might  enter  the  Civil  Service  and 
help  as  Factory  Inspectors  to  apply  these  remedies. 
It  was,  indeed,  through  the  sufferings  of  little 
children  that  the  whole  humanitarian  movement 
for  reform  of  factory  life  by  law  and  administrative 
action  began,  and  that  it  found  its  chance  to  grow 
against  many  and  powerful  adversaries,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  life  of  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  Lord 
Shaftesbury. 

The  sacrifice  of  the  young  workers  made  the  first 
opening  through  the  outer  framework  or  crust  of 
society,  built  up  as  it  had  been  in  the  nineteenth 
century  on  a  basis  of  "machinery  and  steam. "f 
The  children  had  been  drawn,  as  the  children  were 
drawn  by  the  Pied  Piper, 

"A  wondrous  portal  opened  wide 
As  if  a  cavern  were  suddenly  hollowed; 
And  the  Piper  advanced  and  the  children  followed." 

They  had  been  drawn  into  the  factories  as  helpless 
dependents  of  the  machine  for  the  purely  economic 
reasons  that  were  then  generally  deemed  valid  and 
all-sufficient.     In    turn,    they    furnished    the    most 

*  See  above,  Chapter  II.,  p.  57. 

t  "Economic  Annals  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,"  by 
Professor  William  Stuart,  1910,  Preface,  p.  vii. 


CHILDREN  IN  ECONOMIC  CENTURY     165 

unanswerable  argument  against  the  doctrine  of 
laissez  faire,  and  thus  involuntarily  helped  to  bring- 
about  its  discredit. 

The  main  provisions  in  the  Factory  Acts  for 
protection  of  the  young  worker  had  been  framed, 
and  the  very  worst  evils  repressed,  when  Women 
Inspectors  entered  the  service  in  the  last  decade  of 
the  "  economic  "  century.  Yet  much  remained  to 
be  done,  as  has  already  been  seen  in  certain  examples 
of  hardness  and  barbarity,  particularly  in  Chapter  II. 
The  very  institution  of  the  "  half-time  system," 
which  first  came  as  an  enlightened  practical  remedy 
for  excessively  long  daily  hours,  and  as  the  original 
provision  for  compulsory  elementary  education,  had 
in  our  early  official  days  begun  to  be  more  than 
suspected  as  an  evil  in  itself  among  reformers.  It 
lingered  until  the  close  of  the  War,  for  its  prestige 
had  been  great;  it  had  grown  into  the  very  structure 
of  textile  industries;  and  it  had  secured  at  least 
that  whatever  schooling  a  factory  child  had  was 
given  to  it  in  the  daytime.  Many  pages  scattered 
through  Annual  Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector 
record  the  injurious  effects  on  health  (as  observed 
by  Women  Inspectors)  following  on  the  attendance 
of  young  workers  at  night  school  permitted  by  some 
education  authorities  in  cases  of  family  poverty,  as  a 
condition  of  allowing  the  young  worker  of  thirteen 
and  fourteen  to  work  full  time  during  the  day. 

This  latter  point  came  out  so  markedly  because 
of  the  close  attention  that  was  given  by  myself  and 
my  staff  to  applying  the  provisions  for  securing  a 
reasonable  degree  of  physical  fitness  in  jToung 
workers  in  factories.     We  did  all  in  our  power  to 


166  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

bring  home  to  parents  as  well  as  employers  that 
examination  by  the  certifying  surgeon  of  the  child 
for  half  time  or  young  person  for  full  time  employ- 
ment, as  to  their  physical  fitness  for  "  working  daily 
for  the  time  allowed  by  law  in  the  factory,"  was  a 
serious,  not  a  merely  formal,  matter.  We  freely 
used  our  powers  as  Inspectors  to  suspend  a  child 
or  young  person  for  re-examination,  wherever  it 
appeared  to  us  that  she  was  unfit  by  "  disease  or 
bodily  infirmity  "  for  the  daily  work  during  the 
legal  hours.  Out  of  this  came  the  evidence  that 
led  to  strengthening  of  the  law  by  giving  to  the 
certifying  surgeon  power  to  examine  any  process, 
and  to  qualify  the  certificate  by  conditions  as  to 
the  work  on  which  a  child  or  young  person  is  to 
be  employed.  The  younger  the  child  the  greater 
our  concern  for  all  this,  and  from  the  first  we  worked 
in  close  contact  with  the  teachers  in  the  schools 
attended  by  half-timers,  whose  age  or  delicacy 
called  for  our  enquiry.  Incredibly  small  and  baby- 
like were  some  of  the  eleven-year-old  children  still 
lawfully  employed  in  factories  up  to  the  year  1899. 
A  few  ten-year-old  children  were  still  lawfully 
employed  in  1893  when  the  first  Women  Inspectors 
began  their  work.*  In  some  notes  sent  me  by  Miss 
Paterson  at  the  close  of  1921,  written  for  this  book, 
she  says: 

*  The  Factory  Act,  1891,  sect.  18,  raised  the  age  of 
entry  from  ten  to  eleven  years,  but  tho  change  took  effect 
only  in  January,  1893,  and  even  then  not  for  any  children 
lawfully  employed  before  January  1.  The  age  was  raised 
to  twelve  by  the  Elementary  Education  Act  Amendment 
Act,  1899,  in  England  and  Wales.  The  Act  of  1901  made 
the  obligation  general. 


PASSING  OF  THE  HALF-TIMER        167 

"Amongst  the  changes  in  the  law  during  my 
official  service  few  were  so  completely  satisfactory 
as  those  which  have  contributed  to  the  passing  of 
the  half-timers.  Each  advance  of  a  year  in  the 
age  for  entering  on  employment  was  accompanied 
by  gloomy  forebodings  of  the  result  to  industry 
of  preventing  a  child  from  acquiring  facility  while 
its  fingers  were  still  supple — as  if  a  non-wage-earning 
child  sat  with  hands  folded  in  inaction — and  (by 
some  people)  of  the  effects  on  character  of  too  much 
leisure  in  youth.  A  well-known  sheriff  added  to 
his  reluctant  convictions  of  several  firms  for  illegal 
employment  of  children  an  exhortation  to  me  to 
consider  carefully  what  I  was  doing  before  bringing 
more  such  cases  to  tins  court.  In  his  opinion  I 
was  doing  much  to  fill  the  place  with  young  criminals 
who  would  have  me  to  thank  to  some  extent  for 
their  ruin." 

Some  remarkably  enlightening  information  came 
out  of  enquiries  made  by  Miss  Paterson  in  order  to 
find  an  answer  to  the  question,  "  What  becomes  of 
young  workers  rejected  by  the  certifying  surgeon 
in  a  factory  as  physically  unfit  for  the  work  ?"  It 
was  carried  on,  as  much  of  our  work  was,  in  co- 
operation with  the  certifying  surgeon.  In  1900 
79  cases  of  rejection  were  followed  up  to  the  child's 
home,  56  having  been  rejected  as  under  age,  11  for 
weakness  or  disease  of  the  eyes,  6  for  skin  disease, 
1  for  deficient  intelligence,  and  5  for  personation 
of  another  older  child.  It  became  clear  that  the 
children  did  not  go  back  to  school,  that  they  tended 
to  go  either  into  casual  employment  outside  the 
factory  system,  or  into  a  workshop  where  the 
certificates  were  not  required  and  where  a  register 
need  not  be  kept,  that  the  work  they  went  to  was 


168  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

as  hard  as,  or  harder  than,  that  for  which  they  were 
rejected,  and  that  the  children  lived  under  pressure 
of  circumstances  impossible  for  them  to  combat — 
sometimes  selfishness,  oftener  the  extreme  poverty 
of  parents,  sometimes  carelessness  or  indifference 
of  employers.  This  information  was  embodied  in 
evidence  I  gave  to  the  Departmental  Committee  on 
Employment  of  School  Children  in  1901,*  and  thus 
fortunately  became  promptly  utilised.  The  interest 
of  the  general  community  in  the  matter  became 
evident,  and  not  only  from  the  standpoint  of  future 
efficiency  of  the  child;  for  example,  it  was  ascer- 
tained in  one  case  that  a  child  rejected  for  a  con- 
tagious skin  disease  went  into  a  process  not  under 
the  Factory  Act — namely,  the  picking  and  cleaning 
of  fruit  for  making  preserves.  The  close  enquiry 
into  the  reasons  for  rejection  brought  out  again 
very  clearly  what  I  had  pressed  forward  several 
years  earlier,  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  conditions 
of  publicity,  noise,  etc.,  under  which  the  certifying 
surgeons  had  to  make  their  examination  of  the 
young  worker  in  the  factory  and  the  handicap  they 
felt  in  trying  to  make  it  sufficiently  thorough. f 
The  uselessness  of  a  perfunctory  examination 
became  the  clearer  as  one  saw  more  of  the  wide 
range  of  possible  occupations  in  a  large  factory.  It 
was  recommended  on  the  results  of  this  enquiry 
that  better  arrangements  should  be  made  for  the 
examination,  that  the  surgeon  should  have  power 
to  qualify  his  certificate,  and  that  enquiry  should 

*  Cd.  819. 

f  Annual   Reports   of    Chief  Inspector,  1896,  p.  69  ;   for 
1900,  p.  396;  for  1902,  p.  184. 


CERTIFICATES  OF  PHYSICAL  FITNESS  169 

be  sj^steniatically  made  as  to  what  became  of  a 
rejected  young  worker.  Miss  Squire  had  two  years 
earlier  laid  bare,  in  vivid  words,  the  narrow  basis 
on  which  a  surgeon  then  had  power  to  reject. 

"The  certificates  must  by  law  be  granted  if  the 
child  or  young  person  is  of  the  proper  age,  and  is 
not  '  incapacitated  by  disease  or  bodily  infirmity 
for  working  daily  for  the  time  allowed  by  law  in 
the  factory  named.'  The  number  of  girls  and  boys 
so  incaj)acitated  is  small;  is  the  number  of  those 
physically  unfit  for  the  employment  to  which  they 
are  set  also  small  ?  Certainly  appearances  in  the 
factories  are  often  against  such  a  conclusion.  Many 
a  factory  is  a  town  in  itself;  the  processes  of  manu- 
facture carried  on  within  its  walls  are  as  different 
in  character  and  conditions  as  they  can  be;  a  boy 
or  girl  is  certified  as  physically  fit  for  them  all. 
Yet  it  is  conceivable  that  a  child  or  young  person 
may  be  physically  fit  for  one  department  or  process 
and  physically  unfit  for  another;  quite  fit,  for 
example,  in  a  silk  mill  for  winding,  quite  unfit  for 
the  intense  heat  of  the  gassing  room;  quite  fit  in 
steel  pen  works  for  sorting  or  stamping,  quite  unfit 
for  the  strained  position  and  dust-laden  atmosphere 
of  the  grinding  shop ;  quite  fit  in  fancy  box  factories 
for  pasting  on  the  paper,  quite  unfit  for  waiting  on 
the  glue  room  by  carrying  up  and  down  heavy 
pails;  or  physically  strong  for  rough  work,  but 
with  eyes  unfit  for  strained  attention  on  work 
requiring  close  application.  Could  not  certifying 
surgeons  have  power  to  exclude  from  a  certificate 
a  specified  department  or  process,  or  to  name  in 
the  certificate  one  department  or  process  only,  and 
for  this  purpose  have  power  of  entry  to  factories 
in  order  to  see  the  work  in  relation  to  the  child  ? 
In  a  district  known  to  me  where  both  these  powers 
are,  with  the  co-operation  of  occupiers,  exercised, 


170  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

no  one  regards  a  certificate  of  fitness  as  an  empty 
form ;  a  dead  system  has  been  galvanised  into  life. 

"  I  have  often  thought  whether  the  doctor  -who 
saw  the  little,  delicate,  narrow-chested  girl  in  the 
office,  and  was  '  satisfied  that  she  was  not  incapaci- 
tated by  disease  or  bodily  infirmity  for  working  ' 
for  the  legal  time,  were  to  see  her  as  I  see  her  in  the 
stress  and  strain  of  work  toiling  up  flights  of  stairs 
with  a  load  I  cannot  lift,  streaming  with  perspira- 
tion in  steam  and  heat,  bent  double  straining  over 
minute  work,  he  would  have  been  able  to  certify 
her  as  physically  fit  for  such  employment  had 
such  a  certificate  been  requisite.  Having  regard  to 
eyesight  alone,  what  misery  entailed  by  impaired 
vision  might  not  be  spared  by  the  exercise  of  a 
judicious  control  over  the  kind  of  employment 
permitted  to  boys  and  girls  with  defective  eyes." 

Frequently,  when  it  was  necessary  for  an  In- 
spector to  suspend  a  child  or  young  person  from 
work  until  re-examined  by  the  certifying  surgeon, 
or  to  prosecute  an  employer  for  neglect  to  obtain 
a  certificate  for  the  young  worker,  it  was  found  that 
the  occupation  itself  had  increased  some  constitu- 
tional delicacy  or  weakness.*  In  such  cases  the 
young  worker  had  to  be  sent  for  medical  treatment. 
Many  prosecutions  were  taken  for  entire  failure  to 
obtain  the  certificate,  but  so  frequent  was  the 
neglect  that  most  of  them  were  taken  into  court 
only  after  warning,  and  on  account  of  unhygienic 
conditions  to  which  the  young  workers  were  exposed. 

*  Such  as  delicate  eyes  of  girls  of  twelve  and  fourteen 
becoming  inflamed  and  suffering  from  conjunctivitis 
when  exposed  to  dust  from  rabbit  skins  dressed  with 
mercury  solution  in  fur-pulling  works.  See  Annual  Report 
of  <  Ihief  Inspector,  1899,  pp.  273-4. 


SUSPENSION  AND  RE-EXAMINATION    171 

Heavy  weight  carrying  and  other  kinds  of  injury 
have  been  dealt  with  as  regards  workers  generally 
in  the  chapter  on  dangerous  trades.  Here  I  must 
record  the  strong  impression  early  made  on  the 
Women  Inspectors  by  the  liability  of  children  to 
suffer  overstrain  of  many  kinds  in  the  factory, 
simply  because  of  the  general  lack  of  sufficient  super- 
intendence by  someone  whose  duty  it  was  to  protect 
them,  and  because  of  their  own  eagerness  and 
readiness  for  effort.  It  was,  as  Miss  Paterson  said, 
"  almost  incredible  the  extent  to  which  details 
connected  with  employment  are  allowed  to  be 
nobody's  business." 

"The  use  of  heavy  irons,  carrying  or  dragging 
of  heavy  loads,  continuous  strain  of  one  kind  or 
another,  is  just  as  often  as  not  the  result  of  that 
want  of  thought  on  the  part  of  responsible  persons 
which  occasions,  in  all  circumstances  of  life,  so 
much  misery,  and  which  it  is  so  hard  to  overcome. 
...  It  was  my  duty  early  in  the  year  to  take 
proceedings  against  a  firm  in  whose  factory  I  found 
a  little  girl  engaged  in  work  for  which  she  appeared 
to  me  to  be  physically  unfit.  I  served  a  notice  on 
the  firm  requiring  them  to  discontinue  her  employ- 
ment unless  the  certifying  surgeon,  on  a  re-examina- 
tion, found  that  she  was  fit  for  it.  On  a  revisit  I 
found  her  still  there,  neither  dismissed  nor  re- 
examined. It  would  have  been  easy  for  the  firm 
to  have  replaced  her  ten  times  over  from  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  factory,  so  that  there 
was  no  reason  for  the  disregard  of  the  instructions 
except  carelessness  and  indifference."* 

As  time  went  on,  and  especially  after  the  certi- 
fying surgeons  had  the  power  given  by  the  Factory 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1901,  pp.  186-7. 


172  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

Act  of  1901  to  attach  conditions  to  certificates  of 
fitness  for  individual  girls  and  boys,  interest  grew 
among  employers  and  managers  in  setting  the 
young  workers  on  to  more  suitable  work  under 
more  favourable  circumstances.  They  realised  the 
possibilities  for  good  in  the  examination  as  they 
had  not  done  under  the  past  more  formal  methods. 
In  cases  where  young  persons  were  employed  in 
very  dusty  processes — bronzing  in  printing  factories, 
shaking  up  and  cleaning  feathers  in  quilt  and  cushion 
works — those  who  complained  of  ill  effects  were 
found  to  be  "  mouth-breathers  "  on  account  of 
nasal  obstruction,  and  by  arrangement  with  the 
occupiers  these  were  removed  to  non-dusty  pro- 
cesses.* In  potteries  where  a  good  many  prosecu- 
tions had  to  be  taken  for  neglect  to  obtain  certifi- 
cates of  fitness — so  necessary  for  the  heavy  work 
to  be  done  there  by  young  workers — good  effects 
were  particularly  seen  in  new  potteries.  At  one, 
notices  were  distributed  by  the  occupier  at  intervals 
to  all  the  sub-employers  in  the  different  depart- 
mentsf  reminding  them  of  their  duty  immediately 
to  report  the  engagement  of  workers  under  eighteen ; 
in  another  a  clerk  was  set  in  official  charge  of  the 
general  register  and  health  register  with  the  duty 
of  regularly  ascertaining  whether  the  prescribed 
examination  had  been  carefully  carried  out.  En- 
quiries were  systematically  made  into  reasons  for 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1905,  pp.  319-20. 

f  In  this  ancient  industry  the  feature  of  sub-employ- 
ment by  working  potters  obtained,  and  gave  a  distinctive 
quality  to  the  workplace  as  compared  with  that  of  other 
more  modern  industries. 


SAFEGUARDS  FOR  CHILDREN    173 

and  results  of  rejection,  and  an  extensive  report  on 
such  activities  may  be  read  in  the  Annual  Report 
for  1905.  Official  visits  to  medical  officers  of 
health  as  well  as  conferences  with  certifjang 
surgeons  in  the  special  question  of  rejections  for 
uncleanliness  led  to  development  of  co-operation 
between  the  different  authorities.  By  1913  co- 
operation with  education  authorities  and  the 
juvenile  labour  exchange  was  added.  Great 
advance  in  the  care  of  children  was  then  brought 
about  by  co-operation  between  the  school  medical 
officer  and  the  certifying  surgeon.  When  a  child, 
known  to  have  a  physical  defect  or  weakness,  goes 
from  school  to  the  factory,  the  certifying  surgeon 
is  notified,  and  he  subjects  the  child  to  a  searching 
examination. 

Careful  investigation  in  earlier  years  of  the 
certificates  of  school  attendance  of  half-timers 
showed  the  attendance  to  be  good.  The  possibility 
of  securing  a  labour  certificate  at  thirteen  years  of 
age  for  full-time  employment  had  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  this  in  places  where  the  certificate  was  granted 
on  a  high  standard  of  attendance.  This  meant,  said 
Miss  Paterson : 

"  Hard  work  at  school  in  the  years  before  the 
child  is  twelve  years  of  age  .  .  .  and  between 
school  work  and  factory  work  the  Lancashire  full- 
timer  is  often  pitifully  small,  thin,  and  nervous. 
In  a  Scotch  cotton  mill  I  noticed  a  little  girl,  twelve 
years  old,  exempted  from  day  school  on  condition 
of  attending  a  night  school,  and  working  full  time 
in  the  mill  on  the  ground  that  her  work  was 
not  employment  within  the  Act.  She  had  been 
examined  by  the  certifying  surgeon  and  passed  for 


174  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

'  messages  only,  not  to  work  in  the  mill,'  and  carry- 
ing messages  upstairs  and  downstairs  from  one 
department  to  another  was  her  work  from  6  a.m. 
till  G  p. m.  Her  home  was  not  far  from  the  mill, 
but  the  night  school  which  she  attended  from 
7  p.m.  to  9  p.m.  was  a  mile  from  her  home,  and 
altogether  her  day's  work  was  one  that  few  people 
double  her  age  would  willingly  undertake.'"* 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  much  serious,  heedless  over- 
strain of  children  and  of  deplorable  illegal  employ- 
ment in  Great  Britain  in  our  time,  Ireland,  and 
particularly  Belfast,  exceeded  all  other  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom  in  what  must  be  described  as 
exploitation  of  child  labour.  Economic  and  political 
conditions  there,  accompanied  by  backwardness  in 
education,  no  doubt  retarded  a  general  improvement 
in  public  appreciation  of  the  vital  interest  of  the 
community  in  conservation  of  the  strength  and 
care  of  the  natural  development  of  the  child.  And 
it  was  the  additional  misfortune  of  the  Irish  child 
that  the  conditions  of  the  chief  industry — flax — in 
its  many  dusty  and  humid  processes,  inevitably 
contained  much  that  was  undesirable  for  the  physical 
well-being  of  the  young  growing  worker. 

"Public  opinion,"  said  Miss  Martindale  in  1908, 
"  on  this  subject  of  child  labour  in  Ireland  lags  far 
behind  that  in  Great  Britain,  f  I  have  never  so 
vividly  realised  this  as  when  I  prosecuted  a  firm 
on  behalf  of  five  little  girls  who  had  been  employed 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1905,  p.  314. 

f  She  had  been  working  there  and  presenting  living 
pictures  of  conditions  in  industry  for  several  years,  and  the 
accompanying  Annual  Report  for  1906  should  be  specially 
studied  to  see  what  she  did. 


CHILDREN  IN  IRELAND  175 

full  time  in  fairly  strenuous  work.  Three  of  them 
were  twelve  years  of  age,  and  had  been  employed 
full  time  since  they  were  nine  or  ten  years  of  age. 
It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  antagonism  aroused 
in  the  whole  district  by  this  prosecution  .  .  .  and 
the  case  was  dismissed  on  a  small  technical  point. 
.  .  .  Several  cases  of  illegal  employment  .  .  . 
could  not  have  occurred  except  for  public  opinion 
in  that  district.  ...  In  a  flax  scutching  mill  one 
morning  I  found  a  little  girl  aged  twelve  years 
'  stricking  '  flax  with  a  rapidity  and  dexterity  which 
showed  considerable  practice.  My  enquiries  met 
with  the  most  bare-faced  untruths.  ...  I  was 
told  that  the  child  was  at  the  mill  for  no  other 
purpose  than  bringing  tea  to  the  workers.  On 
visiting  the  school  ...  I  was  told  that  this  little 
girl  and  her  sister,  aged  ten  and  a  half  years,  worked 
alternate  weeks  at  the  scutching  mill,  and  were 
employed  there  from  8  a.m.  to  8  p.m.  on  every 
week  day,  including  Saturday.  I  could  not  hear 
of  any  steps  having  been  taken  by  the  teacher  or 
managers  to  stop  this  obviously  illegal  employment. 
In  another  factory  I  found  a  little  girl  of  thirteen 
years  working  full  time  with  a  certificate  which 
showed  clearly  she  was  only  in  Standard  IV.,  and 
of  the  illegality  of  the  employment  the  teacher  must 
have  been  aware."* 

It  was  evident  from  the  Report  of  the  Belfast 
Health  Commission,  published  in  1908,  that  very 
adverse  circumstances  affected  the  health  of 
adolescent  workers  in  Belfast,  though  housing 
conditions  and  unhygienic  conditions  of  school- 
rooms may  have  been  answerable  as  much  as 
working  conditions.  Although  the  infant  under 
five  years  of  age  had  a  better  chance  of  life  in  Belfast 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1908,  pp.  154-5. 


176  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

than  in  Manchester,  not  so  the  young  persons  aged 
fifteen  to  twenty  years;  in  that  age-group  the 
mortality  was  found  to  be  double  that  for  the  same 
age-group  in  Manchester. 

"It  needs,"  said  Miss  Martindale,  "little  power 
of  imagination  to  realise  the  pain  and  wretchedness 
which  must  have  preceded  these  deaths,  and  as  the 
death-rate  is  a  sign  of  the  standard  of  health,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  picture  the  number  of  children  who 
are  living  on,  but  who  are  robbed  of  that  health 
which  brings  vigour,  buoyancy,  and  light-hearted- 
ness.  Mrs.  Dickie,  the  Local  Government  Board 
Inspector  of  boarded-out  children,  who  has  had 
many  years'  experience  of  work  amongst  Irish 
children,  has,  I  think,  put  her  finger  on  one  factor 
in  the  cause  of  the  high  death-rate  when  she  says 
of  half-timers :  '  Commencing  as  they  do  just  at 
the  time  when  all  their  physical  powers  are  needed 
for  the  merging  of  childhood  into  adolescence,  the 
strain  of  the  long  day  in  the  hot,  noisy  mill  or 
factory  leaves  them  without  the  reserve  of  strength 
necessary  to  support  growth  of  mind  and  bod}'.'  "* 

In  a  wonderful  degree  the  publication  of  the 
reports  I  received  from  Miss  Martindale  on  such 
considerations,  and  on  many  details  and  aspects 
of  the  employment  of  children  in  Ireland,  arrested 
attention  there,  and  aroused  true  sympathy  for  the 
cause  of  child  protection.  Not  only  were  the 
reports,  and  her  very  words,  widely  quoted  in 
the  daily  Press,  but  regularly  there  were  leading 
articles  to  drive  her  points  home  when  the  Report 
of  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Factories  annually  appeared. 
In    June,     1909,    the    General    Assembly    of    the 

*   Annual  Report  of  Chief  Jns-pector,  1908,  p.  154. 


SYMPATHY  FOR  CHILD  PROTECTION    177 

Presbyterian  Church   passed  the  following  resolu- 
tion : 

"That  the  assembly  feeling  deeply  the  obligation 
for  the  safeguarding  of  child-life,  especially  in  manu- 
facturing districts,  recommends  ministers  of  this 
Church  to  study  official  documents  bearing  upon 
the  question  of  child  labour,  and  to  endeavour  to 
arouse  public  opinion  in  favour  of  enforcing  the 
law  with  a  view  to  the  protection  both  of  the 
children  and  of  the  law-abiding  employer." 

In  the  counties  of  Antrim  and  Down,  out  of 
50,686  persons  employed  in  textile  factories  at  that 
time,  not  less  than  13,691  were  under  eighteen  years 
of  age,  and  of  these  4,144  were  half-timers.  Thus 
the  question  was  not  a  small  one  for  these  districts, 
having  regard  to  the  heavy  and  debilitating  atmo- 
sphere of  dust  or  humidity,  in  which  so  much  of 
the  work  was  done.  Miss  Martindale  felt  that  a 
spinner  was  right  when  she  said,  pointing  to  a  group 
of  half-timers,  "  Ah  !  indeed,  they  are  hard  enough 
wrought."  It  was  not  surprising  that  the  Belfast 
half-timer  was  undersized  and  delicate.  A  little 
girl  aged  twelve  (one  of  many  of  the  same  size)  she 
had  weighed  in  a  factory  in  1906.  Her  weight  was 
58  pounds,  instead  of  the  76  pounds  that  might 
have  been  expected  for  her  age.* 

The  total  number  of  young  lives  in  factories  and 
workshops  under  some  degree  of  protection  by  the 
Factory  Acts  in  the  United  Kingdom  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  twentieth  century  was  approximately 
1,099,841  persons  under  eighteen  years  of  age,  and 
of  these  459,698  were  under  sixteen  years  of  age; 
*  Ibid.,  1906,  pp.  230-1. 


178  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

of  the  latter,  37,129  were  half-timers,  the  majority, 
19,211,  being  girls.  The  lowest  age-limit  of  ad- 
mission had  been  established  and  duly  observed 
without  difficulty  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
kingdom,  but  in  Ireland  we  had  many  attempts  at 
evasion  to  contend  with — generally  from  the  side 
of  the  parents;  both  Miss  Martindale  and  her 
successor,  Miss  Slocock,  frequently  had  to  follow 
up  falsified  certificates,  and  prosecution  of  a  father 
was  repeatedly  necessary.* 

A  great  deal  of  valuable  work  was  done  in  Lan- 
cashire and  Yorkshire  textile  districts  by  Miss 
Squire  and  her  staff,  and  by  Miss  Vines  in  Scottish 
textile  districts,  not  only  in  giving  effect  to  the 
actual  requirements  of  the  law,  but  in  watching 
over  details  of  employment  that  seriously  strained 
the  young  worker,  such  as  bobbin  carrying  up  and 
down  stairs,  weft  carrying  by  the  tenter  in  the 
weaving  shed  ("  the  tenter  has  always  a  tired 
look  ").  Conditions  affecting  them  in  Dundee  jute, 
hemp,  and  flax  factories  were  in  many  ways  quite 
as  bad  as  conditions  in  Belfast  factories. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  here  more  than  this  bare 
idea  of  the  scope  of  our  activities  in  the  matter  of 
child  labour,  and  I  can  merely  refer  to  the  fresh 
care  that  had  to  be  devoted  to  the  question  during 
the  pressure  of  wartime.  At  that  time  the  eager- 
ness of  children  to  help  again  led  to  much  illegal 
employment  before  the  legal  age  of  admission,  or  to 
full  time  when  only  half  time  was  permissible,  to 
employment  in  school  holidays,  and  at  all  kinds  of 

*  See  Annual  Reports  of  Chief  Inspector,  1911,  J5p.  156-7; 
1912,  p.  149;  1913,  p.  98. 


ILLEGAL  EMPLOYMENT  IN  WARTIME    179 

illegal  hours  in  many  miscellaneous  industries. 
Many  prosecutions  had  to  be  taken  in  London, 
Birmingham,  and  the  North  of  England,  and  in 
Scotland.  Increasing  support  was  given  by  magis- 
trates and  sheriffs  in  repressing  this  evil.  In  1917, 
in  one  case  taken  by  Miss  Vines,  where  very  young 
girls  had  been  employed  for  excessive  hours,  and  a 
defence  was  set  up  that  the  pressure  of  work  had 
led  the  management  to  overlook  the  youth  of  the 
workers,  the  sheriff  severely  observed  that  "  no 
one  could  be  so  busy  that  he  could  not  see  a  girl 
of  thirteen  was  not  eighteen."  In  Birmingham, 
Miss  Martindale  in  the  same  year  prosecuted  nine- 
teen firms  and  five  parents  for  illegal  employment 
of  children,  and  in  Coventry  she  prosecuted  a  firm 
for  employing  a  child  of  ten  years  in  a  bakehouse. 
In  an  outstanding  case  in  the  North-Western  Divi- 
sion a  fruit  preserving  company  was  prosecuted  by 
Miss  Tracey  for  employing  little  girls  of  eight  to 
ten  years,  mostly  in  the  intervals  between  school, 
in  preparing  fruit  for  bottling,  two  of  them  being 
in  poor  health  and  absent  from  school.  There  was 
found  to  be  great  and  special  need  during  the  later 
years  of  the  War  for  watchfulness  by  the  Inspectors 
against  serious  overloading  of  young  workers  or 
their  employment  near  dangerous  machinery.* 

We  have  already  seen  above  that  certain  religious 
and  charitable  institutions  first  came  within  the 
purview  of  the  Factory  Acts  in  1907  as  regards 
industrial  work  of  then  inmates,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  their  inclusion  or  exclusion  had  long 
been  a  subject  of  controversy — in  fact,  ever  since 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1917,  p.  16. 

13 


180  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

the  Act  of  1895  had  partly  regulated  commercial 
laundries.     It  is  somewhat  surprising,  in  view  of  the 
long  discussions  and  the  fear  frequently  expressed 
by  ordinary  laundries  of  unfair  competition  from 
the  side  of  institutional  laundries,  when  one  learns 
that  the  total  number  of  working  inmates  of  insti- 
tutions under  Section  5  of  the  Act  of  1907  never 
exceeded  round  about  9,550,  of  whom  9,417  were 
engaged  in  laundry  work  for  persons  outside  the 
institution,  4,068  of  these    inmates  being  engaged 
in  laundry  work  aided  by  power-driven  machinery. 
In  commercial  laundries  fully  regulated  by  the  Act 
of  1907,  the  last  returns  to  the  Factory  Department 
— published  in  1911 — showed  that  103,635  women 
and  girls  were  employed,  besides  11,466  men  and 
boys,    and   that    75,774   of   the   women   and   girls 
worked   in  power-driven   or   "  factory  "   laundries. 
When  it  is  further  remembered  that  even  the  largest 
institutional  laundries  are  relatively  small  compared 
with  very  many  large  commercial   laundries,  it  is 
evident  that  the  question  of  their  competition  with 
these  laundries  barely  arises,  and  that  the  adminis- 
trative question  of  chief  importance  in  the  institu- 
tional laundries  always  has  been,  What  was  the 
form  of  regulation  most  likely  in  the  special  circum- 
stances  to   aid  in   securing  the    well-being   of  the 
inmates  ?     The  latter  are  mostly  brought  into  the 
institution  for  charitable  aid  or  reform,  or  special 
training   or   special   protection   against   their   own 
weakness,    and    generally   they   lack    the    self-pro- 
tecting habits  of  normal  industrial  workers.     The 
Factory  Acts  were  in  no  way  devised  for  control- 
ling, nor  competent  to  regulate,  either  the  domestic 


INSTITUTIONAL  LAUNDRIES  181 

conditions  in  the  lives  of  these  inmates  or  their 
training  or  education.  The  aim  of  inclusion  under 
the  Factory  Act  was  simply  to  secure  that,  when 
they  were  actually  engaged  on  industrial  work  (for 
purposes  outside  the  institution  itself,  even  if  not 
by  ordinary  way  of  trade),  they  might  be  assured 
of  conditions  of  work,  health,  and  safety,  not  less 
favourable  in  their  circumstances  than  those  enforce- 
able for  a  worker  employed  in  a  factory  or  workshop. 
It  was  about  the  year  1899  that  we  began,  as  a 
branch  Inspectorate,  to  come  in  touch  with  certain 
convent  or  religious  institution  industries;  first, 
through  the  complaints  of  the  ordinary  trader  that 
they  were  in  an  unfairly  favoured  position,  and, 
secondly,  through  the  research  of  Miss  Deane  and 
Miss  Squire  in  Ireland,  into  convent  industries 
really  carried  on  by  way  of  ordinary  trade.  Here 
the  workers  were  definitely  employed  under  a 
contract  of  employment  in  lace  making,  knitting 
by  hand  or  machine,  embroidery,  shirt  making, 
laundry  work,  and  weaving  of  flannel,  tweeds,  and 
linen.  Some  of  these  were  inspected  for  the  first 
time  in  1900  by  Miss  Squire.  She  and  the  instruc- 
tions she  gave  under  the  Act  were  well  received 
by  the  Superiors.  The  successful  example  and 
high  standard  set  by  the  Rev.  Mother  Superior 
of  Foxford  Convent,  county  Mayo,  where  a  woollen 
factory  with  dye  works  had  long  been  carried 
on  (with  profit  to  the  peasants  of  the  district  as 
well  as  the  convent),  inclined  other  convents, 
attempting  to  carry  on  small  manufactures,  to 
welcome  the  visit  of  a  Woman  Inspector.  These 
were    not    places    for    reformatory    or    protective 


182  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

occupation  of  girls  and  women — not  so-called 
penitentiaries — but  real  productive  establishments. 
In  no  such  place  previously  uninspected  did  Miss 
Squire  find  any  objection  to  her  official  visits;  a 
hope  was,  however,  expressed  that  the  Inspector 
might  always  be  a  woman;  she  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  occasional  friendly  inspections  were 
all  that  was  necessary  to  secure  that  the  spirit  and 
intentions  of  the  Acts  would  be  complied  with. 
When  I  had  the  pleasure  of  visiting  them  myself 
later  on,  beginning  with  the  interesting  Foxford 
Factory,  where  the  nuns  managed  the  business 
and  supervised  the  work  in  the  worksheds,  I  found 
the  same  spirit,  and  in  that  particular  factory  an 
attractive  combination  of  successful  management 
with  picturesque  charm. 

The  discussions  in  Press  and  Parliament  in  1900 
and  1901  on  the  problem  of  regulating  the  other 
type  of  religious  institution  workplaces,  of  a  re- 
formatory or  charitable  character — largely  for  dere- 
lict women  and  girls — when  the  Act  of  1901  was 
passing  into  law,  led  me  to  enquire  into  comparative 
methods  of  regulating  such  places  in  the  chief 
industrial  countries  of  Europe.  My  enquiries  of 
the  officials  of  sister  Factory  Departments  in  France, 
Belgium,  and  Germany  led  to  my  receiving  warm 
invitations  from  the  Inspectorates  of  these  countries 
to  visit  them  and  see  their  method  of  administration. 
The  invitations  were  accepted,  and  this  was  alto- 
gether a  happy  experience;  details  may  be  read  in 
the  Annual  Reports  for  1901  and  1902.* 

*  Annual  Reports  of  Chief  Inspector,  1901,  p.  152,  and 
1902,  pp.  147  and  194-205. 


INSTITUTIONAL  LAUNDRIES  ABROAD    183 

It  was  not  only  the  friendly,  helpful  reception 
that  was  gratifying,  it  was  the  discovery  that  in 
these  countries,  and  most  completely  in  France 
and  Germany,  the  general  hygienic  and  safety 
provisions  of  their  industrial  laws  applied  to  the 
religious,  charitable,  and  reformatory  workplaces 
equally  with  ordinary  industrial  establishments, 
and  were  enforced  by  the  same  administrative 
methods.  In  France  the  Inspector  had  "  not  to 
enquire  whether  a  charitable  institution  works  for 
gain  or  the  technical  instruction  of  its  workers; 
it  sufficed  that  there  is  manual  labour  for  the  law 
to  apply."  Regulation  was  the  more  necessary  in 
that  there  were  no  less  than  1,472  religious  or 
charitable  establishments  employing  48,432  workers, 
of  whom  the  majority  were  under  eighteen  years  of 
age.  The  long  time,  over  twenty  years,  during 
which  regulation  of  the  hygiene  and  safety  of  these 
institutional  workplaces,  including  laundries,  had 
been  carried  on  under  the  ordinary  safeguards  of 
the  law,  gave  me  a  helpful  object  lesson  in  France. 
Commercial  laundries  had,  moreover,  been  regulated 
as  other  factories  and  workshops  had  been,  and 
for  the  same  length  of  time.  Thus  I  saw  in  them 
a  higher  standard  of  cleanliness,  ventilation,  and 
fencing  of  dangerous  machines  than  had  yet  been 
obtained  under  our  more  recent  regulation  of 
laundries  in  England.  In  Germany,  where  I  was 
received  in  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden  as  a  colleague, 
and  accorded  the  privilege  of  attending  a  staff 
conference  of  the  Inspectorate,  under  the  late  Dr. 
Worishoffer,  their  learned  chief,  I  was  interested 
to  find  how  strict  was  their  protection  of  young 


184  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

workers  against  risks  of  severe  accident  or  dangerous 
machinery,  and  how  much  less  they  were  employed 
in  factory  work  than  with  us. 

After  this  experience  followed  our  regular  volun- 
tary inspection  for  several  years  of  a  considerable 
proportion  of  charitable  and  religious  institution 
workshops  and  factories  (chiefly  laundries),  which 
had  submitted  themselves  to  such  inspection  at  the 
invitation  of  the  Home  Office.  In  Ireland,  where 
the  institutional  laundries  were  larger  and  more 
numerous  than  in  England,  I  made  some  personal 
visits  in  1905  to  representative  institutional  laundries 
and  other  workplaces  possessing  varied  charac- 
teristics and  aims,  and  began  a  study  of  similar 
English  institutions.  A  few  were  found  to  be 
entirely  willing  to  receive  and  act  on  advice  from 
Inspectors  in  the  carrying  out  of  standards  laid 
down  for  commercial  workplaces  as  to  hours,  sanita- 
tion, safety;  others  were  willing  to  comply  in  part. 
Objections  to  compliance  were  sometimes  on 
the  score  of  expense  in  providing  safeguards  to 
machinery,  screens,  and  ironing  stoves  and  so  on; 
sometimes  on  the  ground  that  great  care  in  super- 
vision obviated  need  for  other  safeguards;  some- 
times that  precise  limits  in  hours  or  fixed  meal- 
times, or  affixing  notices  and  abstracts  of  the  law 
interfered  with  discipline;  the  last-named,  and  the 
possibility  of  an  Inspector  speaking  to  a  worker, 
were  the  measures  of  protection  for  the  working 
inmates  that  were  most  frequently  opposed. 
Explanations  tended,  on  the  whole,  to  smooth 
away  obstacles,  j^et  in  an  undue  proportion  of  the 
institutions   nothing   was   changed    under    "  volun- 


VOLUNTARY  INSPECTION  185 

tary  "  inspection,  and  in  these  cases,  finally,  the 
only  course  was  to  refuse  to  continue  the  inspection. 
Full  reports  on  the  results  of  inspection  on  such  lines, 
by  Miss  Deane  and  Miss  Martindale  in  Ireland,  and 
by  Miss  Paterson  and  Miss  Tracey  and  other 
Inspectors  in  England  and  Scotland,  appeared  in 
Annual  Reports  for  1905,  1906,  and  1907.  Remote- 
ness from  ordinary  life  in  the  atmosphere  of  these 
workplaces,  too  strong  a  tendency  to  place  produc- 
tion for  profit  before  thorough  training  of  the 
workers,  and  too  close  a  dependence  on  laundry  work 
alone  instead  of  experimenting  with  varied  occupa- 
tions— in  preparation  for  life  outside  the  institu- 
tion— were  among  the  defects  most  frequently 
commented  on  by  the  Inspectorate.  Lack  of  under- 
standing of  elements  of  personal  hygiene  for  the 
worker  as  well  as  of  hygiene  of  the  workplace  was 
widely  found,  and,  even  after  the  law  and  com- 
pulsory inspection  applied,  striking  illustrations  of 
resultant  ill-health  among  the  inmates  were  re- 
peatedly reported.  At  the  same  time  illustrations 
of  good  and  understanding  care  (always  found  in 
some  places)  grew  in  number  and  greatly  developed 
in  enlightened  ideas  as  time  went  on.  Some  of  the 
extraordinary  risks  found  in  certain  places — e.g.,  an 
unfenced  power  wringer  fed  by  a  feeble-minded 
girl;  an  uncovered  hydro  with  friction  cones  and 
driving  belt  totally  uncovered  fed  by  a  girl  of 
sixteen  with  long,  loose  hair;  newcomers  set  to 
feed  an  unguarded  calender,  for  the  greater  part 
apparently  without  accident — tended  to  suggest 
that  leisurely  methods  and  care  in  supervision  did 
to    some    extent    lessen    risks.     In    an    orphanage 


186  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

laundry  with  an  uncleanly  wash-house  and  very 
long  hours  of  work,  little  girls  were  found  with  sore 
eyes,  and  some  cases  were  also  seen  among  inmates 
who  were  domestic  workers.  The  Sister  said  they 
had  had  a  great  many  cases  lately,  and  that  it 
seemed  "  almost  as  if  the  children  infected  each 
other"!*  Poor  feeding  of  inmates  often  came  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  Inspectors  through  uninvited 
communications  from  the  managers  or  Sisters,  and 
records  of  accounts  in  printed  reports  of  the  insti- 
tutions showed  a  very  low  average  expenditure  per 
head  on  this  item — e.g.,  2s.  lOd.  per  inmate  weekly 
in  one  Scottish  institution— many  inmates  being 
young,  undeveloped  girls,  and  here  the  hours  were 
8  a.m.  to  7  p.m.,  with  one  and  a  half  hours'  intervals 
for  meals;  in  another  the  report  stated  that  the 
average  cost  of  dieting  superintendents  and  inmates 
was  3s.  1  Id.  per  week,  and  average  cost  of  clothing 
inmates  £1  10s.  per  year.  After  application  of  the 
Act  of  1907  to  these  institutional  workplaces  we 
occasionally  learned  of  serious  outbreaks  of  ill- 
health  among  working  inmates,  and  invariably  we 
called  in  the  services  of  the  local  medical  officer 
of  health,  or  the  certifying  surgeon,  or  both — 
improvements  following.  In  one  case  escape  of 
sewer  gas  into  the  house;  in  another  defective 
management  of  working  conditions,  with  dreary 
routine  and  absence  of  play  or  outdoor  exercise 
for  growing  girls;  in  yet  another  pressure  for 
output,  with  long  hours  of  work,  was  found  to  be 
the  immediate  cause  of  cases  of  illness  occurring. 
In  very  many  institutions,  however,  the  inmates  are 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1905,  p.  258. 


APPLICATION  OF  THE  ACT  OF  1907    187 

of  poor  constitution  to  begin  with,  and  not  equal 
to  standard  industrial  hours  until  after  some  care 
for  the  building  up  of  their  health.  At  first  we 
had  many  places  to  inspect  where  inmates  were 
more  or  less  feeble-minded,  but  gradually  these 
have  passed  under  care  of  the  Board  of  Control  for 
the  Mentally  Deficient. 

In  1907  the  last  of  the  "voluntary"  inspections 
were  specially  welcomed  by  managers,  who  increas- 
ingly applied  for  advice  and  information.  In  1908 
compulsory  inspection  was  generally  cordially  wel- 
comed and  Inspectors  were  often  pressed  to  return. 
Conferences  on  aims  and  method  of  conducting  the  in- 
stitutions increased  among  associations  of  managers. 
Educational  and  character-forming  occupations  were 
in  a  few  places  added  to  laundry  work  or  substituted 
for  it,  and  attempts  were  here  and  there  made  to 
try  and  suit  the  special  needs  of  individuals.  For 
example,  a  woman  who  made  nothing  of  laundry 
work  or  needlework  took  whole-heartedly  to  the 
printing  of  programmes  and  notices.  One  began 
to  see  hope  of  the  passing  of  the  listless,  lifeless 
condition  of  many  inmate  workers,  and  of  the 
coming  of  something  of  the  vital,  "  alive,"  and 
frequently  graceful  movements  of  the  "  factory  girl." 
It  is  not  impossible  even  with  laundry  work  as  the 
chief  occupation  of  the  institutional  workers  to 
find  happy  activity  among  them — when  the  Sister 
Superior  or  manageress  is  sufficiently  young  in  spirit 
to  develop  "  hobbies  "  in  recreation,  and  to  en- 
courage in  the  girls  a  sense  of  responsibility.  I  know 
of  one  institution  where  the  Sister  Superior  aims  at 
self-government   in   the   best   spirit   of   a    "  public 


188  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MOTHERS 

school."  And  here,  when  charming  baskets  made 
by  the  laundry  girls  were  brought  out  for  my 
inspection,  they  asked  eagerly  that  I  might  also  "  see 
Sister's  work."  Still,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
there  was  not  very  much  to  be  done  to  secure 
compliance  with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Act  of 
1907  during  the  seven  years  following  its  coming 
into  force. 

Although  desire  of  exceptional  treatment  in  the 
matter  of  hours  declined,  still,  on  the  whole,  the 
total  extent  of  hours  spent  at  work  is  more  nearly 
drawn  out  to  the  full  permissible  limits  than  is 
recently  customary  in  commercial  workplaces. 
Safety  of  the  machinery  and  sanitation  of  the  work- 
place were  gradually  secured,  but  it  was  a  slow 
and  tedious  process  to  develop  any  enlightenment 
as  to  the  value  of  shortened  spells  and  hours.  In 
a  few  cases  there  was  obstinate  resistance  to  instruc- 
tions in  the  requirements  of  the  Act,  and  reform 
was  not  secured  until  the  Home  Office  had  exercised 
the  power  of  withdrawing  all  privileges  allowed 
under  the  Act.  The  last  reported  case  of  that  kind 
was  one  in  1914.  Yet  "  in  the  great  majority  of 
homes  under  Section  5  of  1907  there  continues  to 
be  faithful  observance  of  the  law."*  The  War 
brought  reverberations  into  these  workplaces  as 
well  as  into  all  others.  New  ideas  were  aroused 
among  managers  by  the  varied  experiments  in 
special  workrooms  for  unemployed  women,  during 
the  first  few  months  of  the  War,  under  Queen  Mary's 
Fund-t     The   great  general   demand   for   women's 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  p.  94. 
t  Ibid.,  1914,  pp.  46-7. 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  ACT  189 

and  girls'  labour  altered  the  whole  position  for  any 
of  them  willing  to  retrieve  themselves  by  service  to 
the  nation,  and  it  was  interesting  to  learn  that  the 
numbers  in  the  Homes  markedly  declined.  After  the 
War,  girl  inmates  began  to  show  their  new  powers 
of  initiative  by  writing  to  the  Senior  Lady  Inspector, 
thus  showing  the  value  of  abstracts  and  notices 
with  names  and  addresses  affixed  in  the  workplace. 
In  one  such  place  a  complaint  was  seriously  justified 
by  the  investigation  that  followed.  Long  hours  of 
work  for  very  young  girls,  total  absence  of  outdoor 
games,  with  poor  dietary,  had  resulted  in  much 
sickness.  I  visited  the  head  of  the  Sisterhood,  of 
which  this  institution  was  a  branch  work,  with  the 
Senior  Lady  Inspector,  and  we  found  her  open  to 
the  reception  of  new  ideas.  A  change  in  manage- 
ment followed,  with  happy  results.  We  received, 
some  months  later,  direct  from  the  girls  and  their 
new  Sister  Superior,  a  hearty  and  welcome  invita- 
tion to  attend  their  annual  festivity. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR  AND  ITS  INFLUENCE  ON 
legislation;  EXPERIENCES  IN  COURTS 

"  I  doubt  very  much  whether  the  office  of  Factory 
Inspector  is  one  suitable  for  women.  ...  It  is  seldom 
necessary  to  put  a  single  question  to  a  female.  .  .  .  Pos- 
sibly some  details,  here  and  there,  might  be  superintended 
by  a  female  Inspector,  but  looking  at  what  is  required  at 
the  hands  of  an  Inspector,  I  fail  to  see  advantages  likely  to 
arise  from  her  ministrations  in  a  factory  ...  so  opposite 
to  the  sphere  of  her  good  work  in  the  hospital,  the  school, 
or  the  home." — Chief  Inspector  of  Factories,  October  31, 
1879.* 

"  The  men's  and  women's  sides  of  the  Inspectorate  .  .  . 
will  be  amalgamated  into  a  single  organisation.  Women 
Inspectors  will  be  regarded  as  eligible  for  all  posts.  While 
the  complete  fusion,  which  is  the  ultimate  aim,  can  only 
be  brought  about  gradually,  the  main  principles  will  bo 
put  into  effect  from  the  commencement." — Chief  Inspector 
of  Factories,  June  8,  1921.f 

While  we  await  the  development  of  the  later  of 
these  two  extremes  in  official  views  on  the  possi- 
bilities of  employment  of  Women  Factory  Inspectors, 
there  is  ample  material  in  the  intervening  Annual 
Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  and  in  comments 
and  conclusions  in  Parliamentary  Debates  upon 
them,  for  grasping  the  realities  in  the  life  and 
activity  of  the  Inspectors. 

*  Annual  Reports  of  Chief  Inspector,  1879,  p.  98. 
t  Ibid.,  1921,  pp.  9  and  K  . 
ISO 


FIELD  OF  WORK  191 

In  the  reports  it  is  clear  that  they  were  engaged 
all  the  time  on  work  that  really  mattered  in  its 
immediate  effect  on  the  life  and  conditions  of 
women  as  workers  in  the  factory  and  workshop, 
as  outworkers,  as  mothers,  and  as  industrial  inmates 
of  charitable  institutions;  and  that  the  Inspectors 
brought  new  light,  health,  and  safety  into  working 
conditions  for  adolescent  girls  and  children.  Their 
work  was  not  formal,  nor  simply  a  question  of  detail, 
but  constructive  for  the  nation  in  the  things  that 
most  needed  new  thought  and  perception.  The  fact 
that  they  never  instructed  occupiers  of  factories 
about  "  fencing  "  of  dangerous  machinery*  that  was 
operated  solely  by  men  did  not  lighten  their  work. 
It  simply  set  them  free  to  concentrate  on  immense 
human  problems  needing  their  special  attention. 
Women  workers  had  also  to  be  drawn  to  confide 
in  the  Inspectorate,  and  to  co-operate  intelligently 
in  transforming  factory  conditions  from  within. 
Growth  of  the  spirit  of  self-help  in  the  women  was 
noticeable  in  details  of  Annual  Reports  from  1896. 
I  was  able  expressly  to  point  to  its  growth  in  1901 
and  onwards. 

As  regards  "  a  great  many  provisions  "  in  the 
Factory  Act  of  1895,  Mr.  Asquith,  speaking  in  the 
House  of  Commons  on  July  31,  1896,  said  he  was 
"  quite  satisfied  from  recent  experience,  that  these 
provisions  could  not  be  satisfactorily  enforced 
except  by  female  inspection."  And  Sir  Matthew 
White  Ridley,  then  Home  Secretary  in  succession 
to  Mr.  Asquith,  replied  that  "  much  good  had  been 
done  in  the  interest  of  female  workers  of  the 
*  See  footnote,  Introduction,  p.  12. 


192        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

country  by  the    appointment   of    these    Lady  In- 
spectors." 

In  1904  Mr.  Asquith,  in  pressing  on  another 
Home  Secretary,  Mr.  Akers-Douglas,  the  need  of 
really  sufficient  additions  to  the  number  of  Women 
Inspectors  (then  numbering  twelve),  did  so  for  the 
reason  "  that  the  girls  and  women  of  the  country 
might  be  more  efficiently  protected."  This  had 
followed  many  annually  repeated  pleas  in  the  House 
by  various  members,  foremost  Sir  Charles  Dilke 
and  Mr.  H.  J.  Tennant,  for  more  liberal  development 
of  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspectorate,  and  sug- 
gestions were  made  for  placing  them  in  district 
charge  in  centres  of  many  women's  industries — 
e.g.,  in  potteries,  in  Ireland — and  commendation 
was  expressed  of  an  experiment  of  this  kind  in  the 
West  London  Special  District. 

Mr.  Theodore  Taylor,  speaking  as  a  factory 
owner  in  the  debate  on  Home  Office  Estimates  on 
August  4,  1904,  desired  "  to  acknowledge  the  very 
great  debt  of  gratitude  which  employers  generally 
were  under  to  the  Women  Inspectors.  There  were 
very  many  abuses  which  employers  were  not  aware 
of  until  they  were  brought  to  light  by  the  Women 
Inspectors  ...  he  joined  in  the  strong  request 
that  the  number  should  be  largely  increased  .  .  . 
the  adoption  of  this  course  would  tend  to  the 
efficiency  of  factory  labour."  Mr.  John  Burns  held 
that  "  their  work  had  to  do  with  matters  which  no 
average  man  could  understand,"  echoing  a  point 
made  in  earlier  debates  by  Mr.  Asquith,  that  the 
Women  Inspectors  could  "  bring  themselves  into 
close  contact  with  the  workers  and  obtain  from 


INSPECTION  BY  WOMEN  ADVOCATED   193 

them  with  greater  spontaneity  actual  facts  of  the 
real  duties  of  their  lives  and  work,"  and  that  this 
freedom  of  communication  resulted  in  much  better 
administration  of  the  law.*  Mr.  Akers-Douglas, 
replying  in  1904  to  the  demand  for  increase  in  the 
Women's  Branch  of  the  Inspectorate,  "  had  been 
very  much  struck  by  the  unanimous  opinion  ex- 
pressed that  day,"  as  he  had  been  also,  he  said, 
by  "reading  the  very  valuable  report  "  of  that  year 
on  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspectors. 

Members  of  Parliament,  indeed,  showed  through- 
out that  they  were  entirely  convinced  that  efficiency 
and  economy  followed  on  the  spontaneous  character 
of  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspectors'  Branch,  and 
that  the  confidence  reposed  in  them  by  the  workers, 
for  whose  aid  they  were  appointed,  was  appreciated. 
As  Mr.  McKenna  said  on  March  8,  1898:  "We 
know  the  very  high  favour  with  which  they  are 
looked  upon  by  the  working  classes."  The  only 
definite  exception  that  I  can  find  to  this  general 
commendation  is  in  a  complaint  by  Mr.  Jesse  Collings 
on  June  29,  1903,  that  they  went  beyond  their 
province  of  seeing  that  the  laws  were  obeyed  by 
doing  "  missionary  work."  This  complaint  seems 
to  refer  to  their  steady  endeavours  to  encourage 
employers  to  go  beyond  the  law  in  promotion  of 
welfare  conditions — an  aim  which  came  into  wider 
public  consideration  during  the  Great  War. 

There  are  many  passages  in  the  Debates  to  show 
that  it  was  not  only  the  direct  work  of  applying 
the  Acts  and  Orders,  but  even  more  the  faculty  of 

*  Debates  on  Home  Office  Estimates,  August  5,  1901, 
and  June  29,  1903. 


194       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

acting  both  as  an  intelligence  branch  and  as  a 
missionary  arm  of  the  Department  that  was  valued 
by  the  country  in  the  work  of  the  Women  Inspec- 
torate. Not  only  was  the  extension  of  localised 
administration,  by  women  for  women,  in  great 
centres  of  women's  industry  urged  over  and  over 
again  from  1899  onwards;  Sir  Charles  Dilke  also 
led  many  members,  particularly  in  1906,  in  em- 
phasising the  value  of  their  special  enquiries  and 
reports  on  such  questions  as  employment  of  women 
after  childbirth;  the  need  of  after-care  of  young 
persons  rejected  for  physical  unfitness  in  the  factory 
and  thereupon  employed  in  less  regulated  occupa- 
tions and  workshops;  industrial  disease  and  poison- 
ing among  women  and  girls;  observance  of  special 
regulations  peculiarly  affecting  women  and  girls; 
fines  and  deductions  from  wages;  sanitary  arrange- 
ments; and  other  matters  in  which  the  needs  of 
women  workers  necessarily  vary  from  those  of  men. 
"  The  great  organised  trades,"  he  said,  "  are  to 
some  extent  able  to  protect  themselves,  but  women 
workers  depend,"  to  a  great  extent,  on  legislation 
and  enforcement  of  the  law,  and  "  on  the  Women 
Inspectors  especially  falls  the  duty  of  enforcing  the 
law,"  "  where  the  inspection  is  most  necessary." 

In  July,  1908,  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone,  speaking 
as  Home  Secretary,  and  alluding  to  a  40  per  cent, 
increase  in  numbers  of  the  Women's  Branch  (which 
brought  them  to  eighteen),  said:  "The  time  has 
come  when  the  demands  of  the  country  for  more 
Lady  Inspectors  cannot  be  resisted,"  and  he  declared 
that  the  "  increase  would  be  gradual  in  the  future," 
and  that  there  would  be  "  no  change  in  the  character 


RECOGNITION  BY  PARLIAMENT       195 

of  the  excellent  work  "  done  by  them.  At  this 
figure,  eighteen,  the  numbers  remained  for  several 
years.  Then  in  1911  we  find  Lord  Henry  Cavendish 
Bentinck  asking  for  more,  and  expressing  disappoint- 
ment in  finding  that  the  numbers  "  remain  the 
same  " ;  in  1912  he  and  Mr.  Alfred  Lyttelton  referred 
again  to  the  subject,  and  the  former  pointed  to  the 
valuable  concentrated  "  experiment  in  the  way  of 
fencing  machinery  "  that  was  going  on  in  laundries 
in  the  special  West  London  district,  under  a  Woman 
Inspector,  with  resultant  decline  in  number  of 
accidents.  He  referred  also  appreciatively  to  their 
work  throughout  the  country  under  the  Truck  Act. 

The  lively  interest  that  members  took  in  reading 
the  published  reports  of  the  Women's  Branch, 
with  their  "  vivid  and  humane  representation  of 
the  facts  of  our  factory  system,"  was  emphasised 
by  Mr.  Morrell  and  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald  in 
July,  1913,  and  Mr.  Hills  and  Lord  Henry  Cavendish 
Bentinck  returned  to  the  old  charge,  that,  for  the 
sides  of  the  work  affecting  women  and  young 
workers,  efficient  administration  could  be  secured 
only  by  setting  the  Women  Inspectorate  to  do  it. 
"It  is  quite  true  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  male 
Insj>ectors  as  well  as  of  the  female  Inspectors  to 
look  after  those  women  and  children,"  but  for  these 
Mr.  Morrell  urged  "  the  work  cannot  be  effectively 
done  except  by  women." 

This,  then,  was  the  Parliamentary  mirror  of  the 
toils  and  adventures  of  the  Women  Inspectorate. 
There  is,  however,  a  word  to  be  said  on  an  aspect 
that  appears  to  be  neglected.  Undoubtedly  it  was 
helpful  to  the  Women  Inspectors  on  the  one  side 

14 


196        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

to  know,  during  so  many  years  of  difficult  and 
heavy  work,  that  Parliament  grasped  the  extent 
of  their  task  and  the  nature  of  the  work  that  they 
were  reaching  out  to  achieve  in  response  to  the 
appeal  made  to  them  by  the  industrial  womanhood 
of  the  nation.  Yet,  on  another  larger  side,  there 
was  much  pain  also  in  the  feeling  that  this  repeated 
emphasis  tended  to  obscure  any  general  perception 
of  the  highly  urgent  need  that  required  strong 
support,  for  Men  Inspectors  in  dealing  with  pre- 
ventable accident  and  injury,  and  far  too  rough  and 
unhygienic  conditions  for  the  manhood  of  industry, 
in  places  where  women  were  little  employed  or  not 
employed  at  all. 

As  far  back  as  1898  my  own  belief  was  that 
effective  reorganisation  of  staff  involved  not  only 
concentration  of  experienced  Women  Inspectors  on 
the  main  conditions  affecting  women  workers,  but, 
even  more,  a  lightening  of  the  cares  of  Men  In- 
spectors on  this  side  to  allow  of  their  greater 
concentration  on  prevention  of  accidents  and  on 
very  dangerous  trades  where  women  may  not  enter 
as  workers.  In  1920  accidents  affecting  male 
workers  numbered  124,580,  of  which  1,363  were 
fatal,  as  compared  with  14,122  affecting  female 
workers,  of  which  41  were  fatal.*  Examples  of 
the  great  accident  producing  industries  are  extrac- 
tion and  conversion  of  metals,  shipbuilding,  docks, 
construction  of  buildings,  foundries,  locomotive, 
and  other  large  engineering  works.     In  Parliament 

*  In  1910  the  figures  wore:  Males,  118,822  (fatal  1,049); 
females  10,728  (fatal  31).  The  rates  of  the  two  do  not  vary 
widely. 


SPECIALISATION  OF  FUNCTION        197 

the  conclusion  has  invariably  been  reached  that,  in 
health  and  safety  problems  for  women  and  girl 
workers,  Women  Inspectors  are  prima  facie  the 
more  competent.  Is  it  not  in  the  great  safety 
problems  for  men  and  boys  that  a  field  of  specialisa- 
tion lies  for  Men  Inspectors  of  a  nature  as  absorbing 
as  that  which  enthralled  the  Women  Inspectorate 
during  the  last  twenty-five  years  ?  The  fusion  of 
the  men's  and  women's  sides  of  the  Inspectorate, 
while  avoiding  some  old  problems  of  administration, 
raises  up  new  ones,  not  less  large.  A  solution 
appears  clearly  within  reach,  but  discussion  of  it  is 
outside  the  scope  of  this  survey. 

On  neither  side — men's  safety  problems  nor 
women's  health  problems — is  skilled  enquiry  by 
the  Inspectorate  or  experimental  development  of 
regulation  finished.  The  difference  of  potential  or 
actual  maternity  alone  (without  consideration  oi 
claims  on  girls  and  women  as  the  home-makers  of 
the  nation),  according  to  Dr.  Janet  Campbell  in 
her  memorandum  to  the  War  Cabinet  Committee 
on  Women  in  Industry,*  absolutely  prevents  equal 
competition  of  women  with  men  in  industry.  She 
lays  stress  on  the  need  of  further  investigation  into 
the  physical  effects  of  employment  in  industry  upon 
adolescent  girls  as  well  as  adult  women,  and  this 
view  supports  the  considerable  enquiry  made  in  the 
past  by  Women  Inspectors  into  heavy  work  done 
by  girls.  The  persistent  call  of  Women  Inspectors 
during  many  years  for  welfare  conditions  saw  both 
its  justification  and  its  fruit  in  the  industrial  war- 

*  Report  published  1919,  Cmd.  135.  See  especially 
pp.  170  and  253. 


198       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

work  of  women.  The  extensive  employment  by 
the  Ministry  of  Munitions  of  Women  Dilution 
Officers,  to  strengthen  and  promote  employment 
of  women  dilutees  in  engineering  trades,  ran  also 
in  harmony  with  the  idea  of  specialisation  rather 
than  fusion  of  function.  Dr.  Josefa  Joteyko,  in 
her  "  Science  of  Labour,"*  deals  with  experiments 
she  had  made  showing  the  differing  modes  of 
expenditure  of  energy  in  industry  by  man  and 
woman.  She  says:  "Each  represents  a  distinct 
function,"  although  each  form  of  energy  is  equally 
necessary  to  industry  for  its  own  purposes.  While 
her  experiments  established  endurance  as  a  charac- 
teristic in  the  feminine  sex  requiring  a  slow  and 
gradual  expenditure  of  energy  to  avoid  fatigue, 
muscular  force  or  strength  with  a  power  to  act 
instantaneously  under  a  stimulating  impulse  are 
shown  to  be  characteristic  of  the  masculine  sex,  and 
to  be  accompanied  by  ability  to  recover  rapidly 
from  fatigue.  "Most  careful  selection  of  working 
women  with  regard  to  their  muscular  powers,"  she 
considers,  is  necessary  for  successful  industrial 
labour. 

Whatever  the  issue  of  these  various  considera- 
tions, Parliamentary  and  medical,  on  women's  work, 
it  is  well  for  the  general  community  to  understand 
the  ways  in  which  the  Women  Factory  Inspectors 
actually  worked  during  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century.  During  this  period,  says  a  writer  in  the 
Women's  Industrial  News  of  January,  1915,  the 
"  direct  influence  "  of  Women  Inspectors  on  "  enact- 

*  "  Science  of  Labour,"  by  Dr.  Josefa  Joteyko.     George 
Routledge  and  Sons,  Ltd.,  1919. 


INFLUENCE  AND  EFFECTS  OF  WORK    199 

ments  affecting  women  and  young  people  is  very 
great,  and  they  also  helped  to  raise  the  standard  of 
legal  regulation  in  the  British  Isles  by  study  of 
foreign  industrial  legislation."*  She  traced  out  the 
questions  in  which  their  work  had  affected  develop- 
ment of  the  Acts  and  Orders  from  1895  to  1907, 
and  mentioned  among  others  the  following: 
overcrowding,  insufficient  or  unsuitable  means  of 
heating  workrooms,  defective  and  unsuitable  sani- 
tary accommodation  for  women,  dangers  from 
locked  doors  in  fire  or  panic,  excessive  overtime, 
need  of  power  to  qualify  certificates  of  fitness  for 
young  workers  by  specification  of  the  class  of  work 
to   be   done,   insufficient  general   ventilation,   need 

*  This  assertion  appears  to  be  supported  by  the  sum- 
maries I  made  for  the  Annual  Reports  for  1894,-  pp.  33-4, 
on  French  laws  and  orders,  and  for  1895,  pp.  136-219,  on 
German  and  Austrian  industrial  codes,  and  in  various 
other  places,  before  public  interest  in  comparative  labour 
legislation  had  been  awakened. 

References  by  Women  Inspectors,  and  particularly  by 
Miss  Squire  to  law  and  administration  in  other  industrial 
countries,  appear  in  my  Annual  Reports  over  and  over 
again,  generally  where  our  laws  were  inadequate  to  remedy 
complaints.  For  instance,  complaints  on  defective  light  in 
the  factory,  lack  of  washing  conveniences,  on  heavy  weight 
carrying  and  dangerous  processes  (see  Annual  Reports  of 
Chief  Inspector  for  1897,  pp.  103-5;  1898,  p.  169;  1899, 
p.  239;  1904,  p.  243). 

I  also  visited  continental  countries  to  inspect  factories 
with  the  Inspectors  of  the  country,  and  to  study  their  office 
methods  (see  Annual  Reports,  1899,  1901,  and  1902),  and 
to  take  part  in  Congresses  and  International  Exhibitions 
(see  Annual  Reports,  1903,  1911,  and  1920). 

I  began  to  study  fatigue  prevention  after  conferring  with 
Dr.  Josefa  Joteyko  in  Brassels  in  1903. 


200        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

of  inspection  of  institutional  laundries,  regulation 
of  fines  and  deductions,  etc.  "  The  social  progress 
of  recent  years,"  she  said,  "  has  been  the  result  of 
an  unprecedented  attention  to  matters  of  detail. 
Investigation  and  administration  have  begun  to  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  the  scientific  spirit  which  has 
been  so  long  in  coming  to  its  own  in  matters  social 
may  now  be  said  to  have  arrived  .  .  .  the  great 
advance  which  the  Women  Inspectors  have  been 
able  to  bring  about  in  factory  legislation  has  been 
largely  due  to  the  sympathetic  insight  which  has 
made  them  virtually  representative  of  the  people."* 
During  the  whole  period  1893-1921  these  In- 
spectors were,  by  official  instructions,  directed 
especially  to  enquire,  report,  and  take  action  in 
behalf  of  women  and  girls;  a  task  to  which  they 
addressed  themselves  with  hearty  loyalty  and 
intense  interest. f  They  had  Inspectors'  full  powers 
of  action,  and  worked  under  their  own  women 
officers  from  1896  to  1921.  It  was  from  1902 
onwards  that  they  directly  instructed  occupiers  on 
fencing  and  prevention  of  accidents  in  the  clothing 
and  laundry  industries,  of  which  they  had  made 
special  study.  Earlier  in  the  same  year  full  authority 
was  entrusted  to  me,  as  head  of  the  branch,  for 
the  sanctioning  of  their  prosecutions,  a  power 
hitherto  exercised  subject  to  approval  by  the  Chief 

*  Women's  Industrial  News,  January,  1915;  article  by 
Dorothy  Haynes,  p.  313. 

f  In  a  few  instances,  where  men  and  boys  were  jointly 
concerned  with  women  in  contraventions — e.g.,  in  Truck 
es,  fencing  of  machinery  in  laundries,  or  illegal  employ- 
ment of  children — a  Woman  Inspector  would  take  pro- 
ceedings for  both. 


POWERS  AND  PROCEDURE  201 

Inspector.  Except  for  slight  variations  in  the  early 
stages,  co-ordination  of  their  special  work  with  the 
general  work  of  the  male  District  Inspectors  followed 
a  steadfast  prescribed  course  from  1898  to  1921. 

The  very  boundaries  set  to  the  work  of  the 
women  officers  led,  as  things  were,  to  what  may  be 
called  their  "  higher  education  "  in  the  nature  of 
the  representative  and  judicial  administration  of 
their  country.  The  thorough  general  knowledge 
they  acquired,  all  over  the  British  Isles,  of  condi- 
tions in  every  productive  or  manufacturing  industry 
employing  women  and  girls,  sprang  also  from  their 
concentration  as  a  branch  on  this  aspect  of  industrial 
employment.  They  made  close  acquaintance  with 
local  as  well  as  central  methods  of  administration  by 
daily  dealings  with  health  and  education  authorities 
and  their  officers,  as  well  as  with  magistrates, 
sheriffs,  and  their  clerks.  They  had  to  act  for 
themselves — most  fortunately,  for  "  power  to  do 
comes  of  doing  " — in  courts  of  summary  juris- 
diction, learning  procedure  and  something  of  the 
"  law  of  evidence  "  as  they  went  along,  and  gaining 
an  understanding  of  the  details  and  principles  of 
the  Truck  Acts  and  Factory  Acts,  that  could  only 
be  acquired  by  personally  testing  them  in  the 
courts. 

Probably  in  nothing  did  we  owe  so  much  to  the 
first  tentative  efforts  of  Miss  May  Abraham  and 
Miss  Mary  Paterson  as  in  their  adventurous  readi- 
ness from  the  outset  to  try  their  powers  in  police 
and  sheriff  court  proceedings.  I  may  confess  that 
my  own  first  feelings  were  chiefly  of  consternation 
on  learning  that  I  had,  a  few  weeks  after  entering 


202        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

the  Department,  personally  to  prosecute  an  occupier 
for  illegal  emplo3Tinent  of  girls — never  having  previ- 
ously entered  a  police  court.  I  suggested  to  the 
District  Inspector  that  he  might  conduct  the  first 
one,  just  "  to  show  how  it  was  done,"  but  fortunately 
and  wisely  he  declined.  It  was  not  very  long  before 
I  found  a  new  interest  in  methods  of  administration, 
through  my  discovery  of  a  clause  in  the  Factory 
Act  under  which  I  might  ask  the  magistrates  to 
"  make  an  order  in  addition  to  imposing  a  penalty 
on  an  occupier  for  failure  to  keep  his  factory  in 
conformity  with  the  Act  "* — the  magistrates  actu- 
ally complying  with  the  request,  on  condition  that 
the  terms  of  the  order  were  drawn  up  by  the  local 
medical  officer  of  health  and  myself.  This  dis- 
covery was  indeed  crowned  when,  in  a  great  mill 
employing  about  a  thousand  workers,  it  resulted 
in  the  closing  of  ancient  and  insanitary  conveniences 
pouring  effluvia  into  heated  spinning  rooms,  to  the 
erection  of  passable  temporary  sanitary  conveni- 
ences, and,  finally,  to  completed  construction  of 
a  modernised  water-carriage  system  of  conveniences. 
It  was  not  only  in  courts  of  summary  jurisdiction 
that  our  education  was  carried  on.  Between  1894 
and  1916  we  had  sixteen  appeals  on  points  of  law 
to  the  High  Courts  of  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland  issuing  from  cases  taken  by  Women  In- 
spectors in  the  Courts  of  first  instance.  Through 
these  we  learned  something  about  interpretation 
and  the  bearing  of  "  decided  cases,"  as  well  as  the 
thoroughness  with  which  trained  lawyers  prepared 

*  Factory  Act,  1878,  sect.  SI;  later  Factory  Act,  1901, 
sect.  135  (2). 


APPEALS  TO  HIGH  COURTS  203 

a  case;  we  also  came  in  contact  with  legal  advisers, 
law  officers,  Queen's  and  King's  Counsel,  Treasury 
solicitors,  Procurators  Fiscal,  Sessional  Crown 
solicitors,  and  so  forth.  Appeals  to  Quarter  Sessions 
on  matters  of  fact  occasionally  gave  us  further 
enlightenment,  and,  after  a  while,  subpoenas  served 
on  Inspectors  to  give  evidence  in  civil  claims  of 
workers  against  their  employers  opened  up  for  us 
new  chapters  in  the  law  of  the  land. 

Without  warning  an  Inspector  would  find  herself 
when  in  a  police  court  arguing  her  case  not  merely 
with  an  experienced  solicitor  acting  for  the  defen- 
dant, but  sometimes  with  a  well  known  Q.C.  (or 
K.C.).  Our  armour  on  such  occasions  was  a 
thorough  acquaintance  with  the  facts  and  circum- 
stances, and  with  the  scope  of  the  Acts  which  we 
were  trying  to  enforce.  Much  of  the  professional 
point  of  view  and  technique  had  rapidly  to  be 
caught  up  not  only  on  these  occasions,  but  also 
during  the  hazards  of  passing  cases  over  to  the 
Treasury,  or  to  the  Sessional  Crown  solicitor  in 
preparation  for  an  appeal.  The  range  of  subjects 
that  we  sent  up  was  sufficient  to  introduce  us  to 
not  a  little  of  the  lighter  and  more  humorous  sides 
of  legal  proceedings,  as  well  as  to  the  tedium  of 
delays.  In  our  record  year  for  participation  in 
appeals  on  points  of  law — the  year  1901,  when  Miss 
Squire  was  concerned  in  three  appeals  and  Miss 
Deane  in  one — there  was  some  entertainment  in 
spite  of  more  serious  elements.  Three  of  these 
appeals  seem  to  deserve  rescue  from  oblivion  for 
other  than  purely  legal  reasons.  In  Deane  v. 
Hulbert  Beach  we  learned  that  the  section  (of  which 


204       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

we  had  hoped  much  in  the  way  of  remedy  for  work- 
rooms either  cruelly  cold  or  stuffy  because  un- 
provided with  any  proper  heating  apparatus), 
providing  that  "  adequate  measures  shall  be  taken 
for  securing  and  maintaining  a  reasonable  tempera- 
ture in  each  room  in  which  any  person  is  employed," 
secured  nothing  whatever  but  a  reasonable  altitude 
of  mercury  in  the  thermometer,  however  improper 
the  "  measures."  In  this  instance  these  measures 
were  described  in  the  Court  of  Appeal  by  counsel  as 
"  stuffing  the  room  with  a  number  of  women, 
heating  with  gas  jets,  stuffing  up  chimneys,  and 
so  on."  He  argued,  first,  that  the  "  legislature 
must  have  meant  that  it  shall  be  reasonable  having 
regard  to  the  object  in  view — namely,  the  health 
of  the  person  employed,"  but  when  asked  by 
one  of  the  Judges,  "  When  you  say  'it,'  what  do 
you  mean  by  'it '  ?"  his  reply  was,  "The  warmth 
or  temperature."  A  moment  or  two  later  he 
admitted,  "  It  is  a  slip  in  the  Act,"  and  the  Judge 
replied,  "  They  ought  to  have  used  the  word 
'  ventilation  ' — adequate  ventilation."  On  which 
counsel  remarked,  "  Yes,  that  is  the  short  point. 
It  has  been  brought  up  with  a  view  to  amending 
the  Act  this  session."*  In  Fullers,  Ltd.  v.  Squire 
there  was  an  appeal  by  a  defendant  employer 
against  a  conviction  and  penalty  for  employing 
young  women  through  the  night,  on  Saturday 
afternoons,  and  on  Sundays  in  packing  and  decorat- 
ing wicker  hampers  and  ornamental  boxes,  and 
filling  them  with  bonbons  and  sweetmeats  in  fancy 

*  From  shorthand  notes  of  the  case  quoted  in  Annual 
Report  of  the  Chief  [nspector  for  1901,  pp.  278-9. 


DECIDED  CASES  205 

patterns,   tying  up  with  bows  of  ribbon  and  the 

like.     The  argument  for  appeal  was,  substantially, 

that  the  work  was  incidental  to  sale,  not  production, 

and  that  the  place  was  a  shop,  not  a  workshop. 

No    legal    argument    was    verbally    attempted    by 

counsel   for    the  respondent  (the  same  counsel  as 

in  the  previous  case),  but  sample  boxes,  as  packed 

and    decorated    with    bright    ribbon    bows    by    the 

young  women,  were  shown  to  the  Judges  and  made 

a  fine  splash  of  colour  in  court.     The  appeal  was 

dismissed,  the  Judges  declining  to  interfere  with  the 

discretion  of  the  magistrate  in  deciding  the  individual 

case  on  the  facts  before  him.     In  Squire  v.  Bayer 

&    Co.    there   was,    from    an   Inspectors'    point   of 

view,    more    tragedy    than    entertainment    in    the 

decision,  but  the  whole  case  is  a  very  good  measure 

of   the    distance    that    has    been   travelled    in   our 

industrial  and  social  standards  since  the  year  1901. 

A  case  had  been  brought  before  the  magistrates  in 

order  to  test  the  legality,  under  the  Truck  Act,  of 

a  rule  posted  up  in  the  defendant's  factory,  that 

"  all  workers  shall  observe  good  order  and  decorum 

while  in  the  factory,  and  shall  not  do  anything  which 

may  interfere  with  the  proper  and  orderly  conduct  of 

the  business  thereof,  or  of  any  department  thereof 

...  a  fine  of  6d.  (or  less  at  the  discretion  of  the 

manager)  shall  be  paid  by  each  worker  who  shall 

be  guilty  of  any  infringement  of  this  rule."     Under 

this  rule  numerous  fines  had  been  imposed  upon 

young  girls  for  speaking,  laughing,  sneezing,  etc., 

and  they  could  not  know  beforehand  what  "  acts 

or  omissions  "   on  their  part   would  render   them 

liable.     The  intention  of  the  Act  had  apparently 


206       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

been  to  secure  such  knowledge  to  the  workers 
before  they  were  liable  to  a  fine.  The  Inspector 
selected  for  her  test  case  two  girls  who,  among 
others,  had  been  fined  for  amusing  themselves  in 
the  dinner-hour  by  singing  and  dancing  to  a  small 
harp  in  the  workroom  where  they  were  allowed  to 
remain,  no  mealroom  being  provided  on  the 
premises.  The  High  Court  held  that  the  case  was 
not  free  from  difficulty,  but  that  they  could  not 
say  that  the  justices  had  come  to  a  wrong  con- 
clusion in  finding  that  the  fines  were  imposed  under 
a  lawful  contract.  "  It  would  be  going  too  far 
to  say  that  the  language  prescribing  a  fine  for 
breach  of  good  order  and  decorum  is  necessarily 
too  general."  The  ajDpeal  was  dismissed.  In  these 
later  days,  since  the  War,  the  girls  would  not  only 
have  a  legal  claim  to  take  home  their  minimum 
wage  clear  of  all  deductions,  but  employers  very 
often  think  it  natural  and  proper  to  provide  a  mess- 
room,  and  sometimes  even  a  recreation  room  and 
a  piano;  dancing  in  the  dinner-hour  is  occasionally 
not  only  encouraged,  but  teaching  also  given  at 
the  employer's  expense. 

In  the  year  1900  a  case  was  decided  in  the  High 
Court  (Tracey  v.  Pretty)  which  brought  us  an 
experience  extending  over  nearly  two  years,  that 
can  have  fallen  to  but  few,  if  any,  other  litigants. 
It  arose  in  our  endeavour  to  test  the  powers  of  the 
Factory  Department  to  act  in  default  of  a  sanitary 
authority  for  securing  conformity  to  some  standard 
of  sufficiency  and  suitability  in  the  provision  of 
sanitary  conveniences.  The  case  had  been  heard 
three  times,  first  by  two  Judges  who  differed,  then 


A  THRTCE  HEARD  APPEAL  207 

by  three  Judges,  one  being  the  Lord  Chief  Justice, 
Lord  Russell  of  Killowen,  who  reserved  judgment, 
but  died  before  giving  the  decision.  It  was  heard 
for  the  third  time  by  his  successor,  Lord  Alverstone, 
and  the  decision  defined  for  the  first  time  what  was 
meant  by  the  "  proceedings  "  open  in  England  and 
Wales  (outside  London)  to  an  Inspector  whose  duty 
it  was  to  act  in  default  of  the  local  authority.  The 
Inspector  assumed  all  the  powers  of  the  authority, 
acting  on  the  advice  of  their  surveyor,  and  could 
serve  a  notice  under  the  Public  Health  Acts  on  the 
occupier  of  the  factory,  the  magistrate  having  no 
authority  or  duty  except  to  enquire  whether  the 
notice  was  properly  served  and,  if  so,  to  convict. 
Appeal  on  the  reasonableness  of  the  notice  could 
be  made  to  Quarter  Sessions.* 

In  1901,  our  interest  having  been  thoroughly 
aroused  as  to  the  possibility  of  increasing  capacity 
for  the  legal  side  of  the  work  and  of  improving 
methods  in  conducting  prosecutions,  an  invitation 
was  given  by  the  Women  Inspectors,  through  Mrs. 
H.  J.  Tennant,  to  Mr.  R.  B.  Haldane,  K.C.,  M.P., 
since  Lord  Haldane,  to  address  us  on  the  "  Conduct 
of  Cases  under  the  Factory  Acts."  To  this  he  made 
a  generous  response,  and  both  Men  and  Women  In- 
spectors had  the  great  advantage  of  listening  to  a 
distinguished  advocate  on  the  subject,  at  a  gathering 
at  Mrs.  Tennant's  house  on  April  18,  1901.  Starting 
from  the  standpoint,  familiar  to  a  Factory  Inspector, 
that  the  Crown  does  not  fight  a  case  unless  it 
believes  itself  in  the  right,   nor  until  satisfied  of 

*  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  for  1900, 
pp.  360  and  363. 


208        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

the  truth  of  the  matter  in  question,  he  gave  new 
meaning  to  some  of  our  experience  in  preparing 
and  prosecuting  a  case,  and  need  of  readiness  to 
meet  unforeseen  contingencies;  he  also  gave  us  new 
points  for  handling  evidence  and  witnesses.  We 
were  cheered  by  the  stress  he  laid  on  "  the  assurance, 
which  is  a  very  real  one,  that  every  case  you  lose 
brings  with  it  fresh  experience,  perhaps  more  than 
the  case  you  gain,"  and  that  it  is  "  only  continual 
practice  and  dogged  perseverance  that  makes 
people  grow  in  this  as  in  other  respects."  This 
same  assurance  was  given  me  personally  by  my 
own  early  experience,  but  yet  more  by  watching 
the  growth  in  power,  in  this  field,  of  colleagues 
working  under  my  direction.  Of  one  of  them  I 
had  the  gratification  of  once  reading  the  opinion  of 
a  lawyer  well  qualified  to  judge,  who  was  in  court 
at  the  time  she  was  conducting  a  difficult  Truck 
case,  that  it  "  could  not  have  been  better  done." 
Sometimes  words  of  praise  for  prosecuting  In- 
spectors would  appear  in  a  local  paper.  A  single 
instance  may  suffice;  in  1905,  when  a  presiding 
magistrate  was  reported  to  have  said  of  two  Women 
Inspectors,  concerned  in  a  lively  case  of  obstruction 
(of  the  Inspector)  and  illegal  employment  (of 
women)  before  him,  that  "  His  Majesty  was  to  be 
congratulated  on  the  possession  of  two  Inspectors 
who  did  their  duty  so  conscientiously  and  well." 
The  one,  he  said,  had  "  very  ably  and  properly 
conducted  her  own  case";  the  other  (who  had 
pursued  retreating  workers  in  the  factory  down  a 
trap-door  into  a  dark  cellar)  "  seemed  to  have 
behaved  with  great  pluck  and  activity." 


WOMEN  AND  THE  LEGAL  PROFESSION  209 

On  this  side  of  their  work,  in  patience,  resource- 
fulness, and  persistence,  and  in  the  high  percentage 
of  success  in  results,  the  record  does  appear  some- 
what remarkable.  Taking  only  the  years  from 
1898  to  1914,  the  Women  Inspectors  brought  4,9G2 
cases  into  court  against  1,974  occupiers,  and  secured 
convictions  in  4,715  cases.  And  the  average 
penalty  imposed  by  magistrates  rose,  on  the  whole. 
The  years  of  greatest  activity  in  the  courts  were 
between  1901  and  1911.  Though  many  interesting 
cases  came  in  earlier  and  in  later  years,  the  tendency 
increased,  after  1911,  to  place  more  reliance  on 
conference  with  or  persuasion  of  occupiers.  The 
nature  of  infringements  of  the  law  has  largely 
appeared  in  preceding  chapters,  and  the  proportion 
of  cases  was  (as  in  complaints) :  first,  illegal  employ- 
ment; secondly,  defects  in  sanitation  and  infraction 
of  health  regulations;  thirdly,  irregularity  in  pay- 
ment of  wages. 

It  seems  very  natural  that  a  high  proportion  of 
our  younger  Women  Inspectors  have  been  impelled 
to  read  for  the  Bar  in  1920-21  so  soon  as  such  a 
step  was  open  to  them.  Long  after  some  of  them 
have  been  called  to  and  are  successfully  practising 
at  the  Bar,  it  may  touch  them  to  read  of  early 
experiences  of  Women  Factory  Inspectors  during 
the  arduous  battles  they  fought  on  behalf  of  many 
extremely  poor  and  hard-driven  women  workers. 
The  life  they  led  can  only  be  given  by  frag- 
ments. 

Here  is  a  little  extract  from  a  diary,  the  flotsam 
of  time: 


210       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

"  Midnight  .  .  .  December  31  ...  we  are  at  L , 

cold,  miserable.  Came  here  to  see  .  .  .  Sessional 
Crown  Solicitor  about  case  to  be  stated  re  order  of 
D magistrates  in  the  case  of  X . 

"January  1.— We  listened  to  the  clock  striking 
the  new  year  while  making  copies  of  draft-stated 
case  which  we  had  drawn  up  ourselves  and  which 
.  .  .  Sessional  Crown  Solicitor  had  approved  (we 
are  very  proud  of  this  draft).  At  8.30  a.m.  we 
started  in  a  wagonette  with  two  horses,  one  of 
which  had  no  shoe,  with  snow  on  the  ground.  .   .  . 

Arrived  D 6.30  p.m.,   found  Sessional  Crown 

Solicitor  and  two  resident  magistrates,  had  long 
conference,  read  them  our  stated  case  which  they 
adopted  in  toto. 

"  January  2. — Conference  all  day  long  and  attend- 
ance in  court,  when  J.  P.  signed  stated  case  with 
exception  of  .  .  .  Sat  up  till  2  a.m.  copying  stated 
case  ready  for  service  next  day.  Atmosphere  very 
damp,  also  cold.  .  .  .  Slept  under  nine  thicknesses 
of  blankets  and  two  counterpanes. 

"  January  3. — All  day  trying  to  get  stated  case 
signed  by  outstanding  magistrate,  who  flatly  refused, 

saying,  '  I  know  X was  in  the  wrong,  but  it's 

making  too  much  of  it  to  take  the  case  to  Dublin.' 

"  January  4. — At  4  a.m.  we  started  for  our  fifteen- 
mile  drive  to  nearest  railway-station,  bright  starlight, 
lovely  sunrise,  nearly  choked  with  clothing  and  hot 
bottles,  and  sat  nursing  our  best  hats  on  our  knees." 

For  "peripatetic"  Inspectors  the  difficulty  was 
a  real  one ;  the  fitting  in  of  visits  of  special  enquiry, 
general  routine  visits  of  inspection,  visits  on  ex- 
tremely varied  kinds  of  complaints,  with  the  suc- 
cessful prosecution  of  prolonged  legal  activities  in 
widely  scattered  places.  Yet  I  know  of  no  case 
where  action  failed  through  omission  by  an  Inspector 


OBSTACLES  OVERCOME  211 

to  serve  a  notice  or  complete  any  legal  formality 
or  be  at  the  necessary  spot  at  the  prescribed  time. 
There  was  a  flame  burning  within  that  seemed  to 
consume  obstacles  by  the  way,  and  rendered 
innocuous  even  very  adverse  climatic  and  other 
conditions.  Long  cross-country  drives  in  Ireland 
(undertaken  at  times  simply  to  carry  out  a  formal 
act)  would  sometimes  last  all  day  in  an  open  car 
in  pouring  rain,  or  a  day  in  a  tiny,  stuffy  police 
court  might  have  to  be  preceded  by  a  drive  begin- 
ning before  daylight  on  a  stormy  winter  morning 
to  fetch  intimidated  witnesses  for  the  case.  In 
Lancashire  a  start  might  have  to  be  made  at  4.30  a.m. 
from  a  hotel  (with  the  aid  of  knocking-up  by  the 
night  porter),  to  reach  a  distant  country  mill, 
unobserved,  by  a  new  route,  in  order  to  detect 
time-cribbing  before  6  a.m.  Tussles  with  manager- 
esses to  obtain  the  luxury  of  clean  sheets  on  the 
hotel  beds,  and  struggles  to  secure  amendments 
in  conditions  of  uncleanliness  (about  which  "  Lord 

X Y ,  here  last  week,  had  not  complained  "), 

were  much  more  against  the  grain.  Yet  all  seemed 
small  in  comparison  with  such  conclusions  as  that 

of    the    X Sentinel    that    the    Lady    Factory 

Inspector  had  "emerged  triumphant"  from  her 
case;  that  the  "  Truck  Act  has  a  living  force  for  the 
protection  of  a  worker  as  far  away  as  Altnagapple  " ; 
and  that  "  the  publicity  given  to  these  prosecutions 
is  likely  to  have  a  beneficial  effect  throughout 
the    county."      Or,   again,  the   comments    of    the 

Daily  C on  the  prosecution  of  a  firm  employing 

a  number  of  young  girls  in  processes  scheduled  as 
"  dangerous  "    was    enlivening.     A    certain    town 

15 


212       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

which  was  "famous  for  its  magistrates  in  Shake- 
speare's time  yesterday  let  off  notable  offenders 
lightly.  For  employing  four  young  girls  without 
the  certificate  of  the  doctor  which  the  law  requires 
a  fine  of  10s.  in  each  case  was  enforced — this  being 
positively  the  first  offence  of  the  sort;  and  for  an 
incredibly  mean  breach  of  the  Truck  Act,  by 
means  of  which  a  girl  had  her  wages  stopped  for 
two  whole  years  to  pay  her  father's  rent,  the  firm 
had  to  pay  three  guineas.     Grinding  the  faces  of 

the  poor  is  cheap  down  in  ,  and  but  for  the 

Woman  Inspector  who  found  out  what  was  going 
on  it  would  cost  nothing  at  all." 

Consolation  sometimes  came  swiftly  to  the 
Inspector  on  a  refusal  of  magistrates  to  convict  in 
a  closely  contested  case  for,  for  instance,  heavy 
deductions  from  the  girls'  small  wages,  or  for  waste 
in  production.  In  such  a  case,  the  firm,  before 
leaving  court,  offered  to  meet  the  Inspector's  views 
by  lowering  the  scale  of  deductions  for  the  future 
to  figures  that,  if  yielded  at  an  earlier  stage,  would 
have  obviated  the  need  for  prosecution.  Publicity 
in  such  things  was  ever  our  most  potent  helper. 
Something  of  the  "  setting  "  of  this  case,  in  the 
court,  may  be  brought  up  from  the  past  by  means 
of  a  stray  leaf  of  a  letter,  come  back  to  me  from 
the  colleague  to  whom  I  wrote  it  in  1899: 

"The  firm  had  arranged  quite  a  dramatic  scene 
for   us— no   less   than   three   barristers,    with   wigs 

and   all.      Mr.    Y ,    Q.C.,    defended,    with    the 

help  of  his  friend,  Mr.  S ,  and  another  friend 

of  theirs  who  came  in  from  the  Assize  Court  to 
enjoy  himself.  All  the  four  partners  were  there, 
and  their  solicitor.     It  would  take  too  long  to  tell 


MEETING  THE  INSPECTOR'S  VIEWS     213 

the  whole  story  now,  but  ...  it  was  worth  while 
fighting,  and  we  were  in  court  until  3  p.m.  I  had 
breakfasted  at  6.30  a.m.  in  London,  so  you  will 
believe  that  I  was  glad  when  lunch- time  came. 
The  stipendiary  and  the  magistrate's  clerk  listened 
with  the  greatest  interest  to  Miss  Squire's  clear 
exposition  .  .  .  but,  alas  !  our  witnesses  were  not 
nearly  good  enough.     One  of  them  was  like  wax 

in  the  hands  of  Mr.   Y ,   who,   as  one  of  the 

sergeants  of  the  court  confided  to  me,  '  was  not 
one  of  your  bullying  sort,  but  quite  gentlemanly.' 
The  stipendiary  could  not  make  up  his  mind, 
however,  and  is  going  to  think  it  over  and  give  his 
decision  on  Tuesday." 

His  decision  then  was  to  dismiss  the  case  on  the 
evidence  before  him,  but  not  as  a  precedent  to 
govern  other  cases.  The  deductions  had  been  so 
large,  in  relation  to  the  wages  of  the  girls,  that  they 
could  only  be  levied  by  small  weekly  instalments, 
extending  over  months.* 

Two  Inspectors  in  the  same  year  had  an  almost 
incredible  series  of  experiences  in  Donegal  (details 
of  which  can  be  seen  in  the  Blue  books)  when 
trying  to  limit  very  long  hours  of  employment  of 
women  in  "  kippering  "  processes  on  an  island,  and 
to  secure  payment  in  coin  for  outworkers  on  the 
mainland  engaged  in  knitting.  A  study  of  legal 
procedure  was  involved  that  proved  enlightening 
to  the  Inspectors,  while  one  of  them  most  deeply 
engaged  in  the  latter  of  these  cases  lived  for  the 
most  part  practically  under  police  protection.  She 
was  "  much  cheered  by  the  sympathy  and  gratitude 
of  the  peasants,"   on  whose   behalf  she  doggedly 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1899,  p.  249. 


214       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

prosecuted  the  case  against  local  agents  giving  out 
the  work.  In  the  "  kippering  "  case  there  were 
two  hearings.  At  the  first,  there  was  equal  division 
of  the  magistrates,  ending  in  its  being  "  dismissed 
without  prejudice."  At  the  second,  there  were 
five  magistrates,  and  the  case  was  dismissed  by  a 
majority  of  three  on  the  ground  of  exemption  of  the 
processes  from  the  Act.  The  hearing  was  largely 
"  occupied  by  the  elaborate  speech  of  the  solicitor 
for  the  defence.  .  .  .  The  climax  of  his  oration 
was  reached  when  he  appealed  to  the  magistrates 
not  to  allow  "  the  Inspector  "  to  hie  herself  back 
to  the  Home  Office  bedecked  with  the  plumes  of 
victory."  The  case  which  was  stated  for  appeal 
"  never  reached  a  hearing,  owing  to  a  failure  to 
observe  a  legal  requirement  "  on  the  part  of  the 
legal  agent,  to  whom  it  was  entrusted  when  it 
passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Inspectors.* 

It  would  require  a  separate  book  of  some  size  to 
tell  of  many  more  of  our  memorable  experiences 
in  the  courts,  and  of  the  wonderful,  varied  play  of 
human  circumstances  and  character  there.  It  may 
be,  as  one  of  the  Women  Inspectors  once  observed 
to  me,  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world  to  tell — 
or  to  secure  the  telling  of — "  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth."  Yet  the  first 
business  in  a  Court  of  Justice,  however  summary, 
is  to  secure  the  presentation  or  unfolding  of  truth, 
and  truth  being  always  near  the  mainspring  of  life, 
this  is  perhaps  the  reason  why  so  much  entertain- 
ment, interest,  and  strange  attractiveness  is  to  be 

*  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  for  1899, 
p.  247. 


MEMORABLE  EXPERIENCES  215 

found  there.  Possibly  we  had  far  too  many  cases 
in  which  the  size  of  penalty  for  serious  contra- 
ventions seemed  not  at  all  deterrent.  And  yet  all 
the  time  a  process  was  going  on — of  which  we  saw 
glimpses  now  and  again — in  the  recognition  by 
employers  of  the  thing  that  really  mattered,  their 
moral,  as  distinct  from  their  legal,  responsibility 
in  matters  affecting  health  and  well-being  of  the 
workers  in  the  factories  and  workshops.  And  memory 
lingers  on  a  case  in  which  deterrent  penalties  were 
obtained  in  circumstances  where  every  interest  of  the 
locality  appeared  to  be  against  an  impartial  hearing : 

"The  employment  of  the  women  from  8.30  a.m. 
of  one  day  until  5  a.m.  on  the  next  was  on  a  mourn- 
ing order  for  the  magistrate's  clerk.  The  magis- 
trate, before  whom  the  informations  were  brought, 
at  first  refused  to  sign  them,  and  only  did  so  on  the 
recommendation  of  the  magistrate's  clerk.  The 
active  partner  in  the  business  is  a  magistrate. 
The  Mayor  (in  the  chair)  is  the  other  workshop 
employer,  who  was  cautioned  for  illegal  employ- 
ment of  a  child.  At  the  hearing  of  the  case  a 
strong  opinion  was  expressed  by  some  of  the  Bench 
that  the  offence  was  merely  technical,  and  that 
the  Factory  Acts  were  hardly  intended  to  apply  to 
such  country  towns.  Under  these  circumstances 
...  all  concerned  are  to  be  congratulated  ...  on 
the  fact  that  sufficient  penalties  were  imposed  to 
mark  the  offence  as  more  than  merely  technical."* 

In  this  chapter  I  have,  so  far,  mainly  considered 
the  side  of  the  Inspectors'  work  that  followed  from 
the  need  of  enforcing  observance  of  the  standards 
in  the  Acts,  a  need  which  was  greatest  in  the  earlier 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1901,  p.  161. 


216        THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

years.  Routine  daily  inspection  of  factories  and 
workshops  at  all  times  took  a  large  place  and  in- 
creasingly so,  until  it  was  far  the  largest  part  of  the 
life  of  the  Woman  Inspector.  It  was,  of  course, 
vital  that  she  should  visit  as  many  as  possible  of 
the  tens  of  thousands  of  places  where  female  workers 
were  employed,  to  give  both  employers  and  workers 
all  that  can  be  given  and  that  they  desired  from 
such  routine  inspection.  It  has  already  been  seen 
how  new  light  was  thrown  on  many  questions  of 
health,  safety,  and  welfare,  how  fresli  attention 
was  aroused  to  the  importance  of  many  sections  in 
the  various  Acts,  and  how  the  Women  Inspectors, 
by  special  concentration  of  attention  on  these  in  the 
workplace,  amassed  fresh  material  for  advance  in 
legislation  and  administration.  In  an  ordinary 
year,  let  us  take  1913,  they  would  effectively 
inspect  between  6,000  and  7,000  factories,  between 
3,000  and  4,000  workshops,  visit  many  outworkers, 
factory  workers  at  their  homes,  besides  hospitals, 
local  authorities,  and  the  courts.  They  would 
investigate  many  reported  cases  of  industrial 
poisoning,  between  600  and  700  accidents  to  women 
and  girls  in  laundries  and  wearing  apparel  industries. 
Contravention  notices  to  occupiers  would  number 
9,000  or  more;  prosecutions  in  1913  numbered  373 
against  142  occupiers.  It  is  evident  that  the  direct 
action  of  the  Woman  Inspector  stretched  far  beyond 
the  investigation  of  specific  complaints  (of  which 
2,014  were  received  in  1913),  or  the  following  up 
of  contraventions  serious  enough  for  prosecution. 

Seeing    that    over    10,000    workplaces    could    be 
inspected  by  the  women  officers  in  the  year,  and 


ROUTINE  INSPECTION  217 

thai  in  each  one  the  name  and  address  of  the  local 
Senior  Lady  Inspector  was  affixed  on  the  abstract 
of  the  Acts,  a  great  deal  was  gradually  done  to 
give  the  women  workers  that  access  to  a  Woman 
Inspector  that  they  so  earnestly  desire.  Much 
more  than  is  generally  realised  was  added  by  the 
fact  that  these  officers  of  the  Department  systemati- 
cally seni  a  letter  of  advice,  instruction,  or  caution — 
as  the  case  required — to  the  occupier  after  an 
inspection,  and  that  this  had  incomparably  more 
attention  from  him  than  a  merely  formal  notice  of 
contravention  ever  had.  A  large  part  of  the  effect 
of  an  inspection  is  missed  when  a  necessary  instruc- 
tion it  given  on  a  form  instead  of  in  a  written  letter. 
The  Jatter  not  only  secured,  for  example,  better 
fencing  and  better  ventilation,  heating,  and  welfare, 
but  it  also  stimulated  reflection  and  aroused  a  new 
sympathy  for  the  aims  and  objects  of  the  Acts  which 
bore  sometimes  surprising  fruit.  Replies  of  thanks 
from  the  employers  asking  for  more  help  came  in 
increasing  numbers,  and  it  was  very  pleasing  during 
the  war  period  to  be  told  how  heads  of  firms  some- 
times specially  appreciated  visits  from  married 
Women  Inspectors,  who  were  employed  at  that 
time  by  the  Department  in  a  temporary  capacity. 
The  influx,  then,  of  many  women  employees,  as 
dilutees  or  otherwise,  into  many  factories,  which 
had  never  previously  employed  a  woman  or  girl 
in  process  work,  awakened  a  good  many  employers 
to  the  special  problems  of  supervision  and  welfare 
that  arise  in  organising  joint  industrial  employment 
of  men  and  women,  boys  and  girls. 

As  soon  as   the  number  of  Women  Inspectors 


218       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

grew  beyond  the  small  figure  necessary  to  cope  vith 
the  appeals  and  complaints  of  the  women  wo'kers 
themselves,  my  own  endeavour  was  to  allot  their 
services,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  the  various  main 
women's  industries  over  the  whole  countr/,  in  a 
scale  proportioned  to  the  numbers  of  gHs  and 
women  employed.  When  the  statistics  of  those 
employed  in  each  trade  became  available,  one  could 
find  the  necessary  clue.  Textiles  absorbed  over 
43  per  cent,  of  the  women  and  girls,  clothing  :rades 
over  26-5  per  cent.,  laundries  5-4  per  cent,  food 
preserving  4-6  per  cent.,  warehouses,  calendering, 
and  finishing  2-2  per  cent.,  earthenware  and  china 
works  nearly  2  per  cent.  Other  determining  factors 
of  course  came  in,  such  as  special  risks,  questions 
of  Truck  or  piecework  wages,  excessive  seasonal 
overtime  employment,  and  so  on,  but  where  these, 
or  the  women's  own  complaints,  did  not  compel 
our  concentrated  attention,  relative  allotment  of 
routine  inspection  was  more  or  less  governed 
by  the  proportional  extent  of  women's  employ- 
ment.* 

"While  we  can  see,"  I  said  in  1913,  '"a  great 
number  and  variety  of  deplorable  contraventions 
of  the  actual  requirements  and  spirit  of  the  law 
and  .  .  .  apparently  preventible  suffering  and 
overstrain  and  injury  to  life,  limb,  and  health  that 
is  grievous  to  dwell  upon  (except  for  action  in  the 
way  of  removal),  we  can  see  also  most  clearly  signs 
of  improvement  and  the  promise  of  much  more. 
The  promise  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  movement 
to  secure  better  conditions  is  not  confined  to  any 
one  class  or  group.     The  women  and  girls  at  last 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1912,  pp.  142-4. 


A  TYPICAL  SPECIAL  DAY  219 

begin  to  press  their  claims  for  a  better  life  .  .  .  not 
only  by  increasing  appeals  to  Inspectors  .  .  .  but 
also  by  criticism  of  the  limitations  of  the  law  and 
by  fresh  courage  in  organising  and  voicing  their 
needs  to  the  employers.  Employers  are  initiating 
reforms  not  only  as  outstanding  individuals  and 
firms,  but  are  beginning  to  do  so,  at  last,  by  asso- 
ciated action  and  effort."* 

Mrs.  Drury  (Miss  Whitworth),  formerly  an  In- 
spector of  Factories  working  under  a  Senior  in  a 
division,  sends  me  the  following  memory  sketch 
of  a  characteristic  special  day — any  day  that  had 
to  be  withdrawn  from  routine  work  in  order  to  cope 
with  a  variety  of  miscellaneous  claims  needing 
prompt  attention.  It  might  have  happened  in 
1912  or  1913: 

"  Many  days  were  very  full,  all  were  interesting. 
.  .  .  Let  me  suppose  I  was  first  off  to  investigate 
an  accident  in  a  laundry.  With  the  prescribed 
report  from  employer  and  certifying  surgeon  in  my 
hand,  I  knew  that  a  girl  of  fourteen  had  had  her 
arm  drawn  in  between  the  hot  rollers  of  a  collar 
polishing  machine.  There  was  first  the  examination 
of  the  machinery  to  see  if  a  proper  guard  was 
provided  and  maintained,  then  the  examining  of 
workers  to  find  out  the  usual  way  in  which  the 
rollers  were  cleaned,  and  whether  sufficient  instruc- 
tion had  been  given  by  those  in  authority  about  use 
of  this  dangerous  machine;  in  short,  why  the 
accident  had  happened  and  how  similar  ones  could 
be  prevented.  If  a  serious  breach  was  found  it 
was  necessary  to  take  sufficient  evidence  in  support 
of  possible  legal  proceedings— a  general  inspection 
of  the  whole  laundry  followed  and  notes  would  be 

*  Ibid.,  1913,  pp.  70-3,  100-1. 


220       THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

carefully  made  as  one  went  along.  Finally,  one 
would  see  the  manager  and  discuss  each  point  and 
instruct  as  necessary.  A  visit  to  the  patient  fol- 
lowed, probably  in  hospital,  and  her  story  would 
be  heard.  Light  was  then  thrown  on  what  it  is 
difficult  to  realise  without  quietly  seeing  the  workers 
alone.  Help  as  to  how  to  set  about  getting  com- 
pensation was  often  asked  for,  and  the  worker  could 
then  be  referred  to  the  Working  Women's  Legal 
Advice  Bureau.  If  there  was  any  defect  in  the 
machine,  so  that  risk  of  accident  in  cleaning  it 
was  high,  a  visit  to  the  makers  of  the  machine 
or  their  agents  might  be  made,  then  or  later, 
to  try  to  persuade  them  to  do  their  part — an 
educative  proceeding  even  if  fruit  was  slow  in 
showing. 

"  It  would  by  now  be  lunch- time,  and  one  learnt 
to  sometimes  take  the  meal  in  odd  places:  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  when  '  on  leave  '  an  Inspector 
enjoys  a  nice  comfortable  meal  at  home  and  is  not 
a  lover  of  picnics.  The  meal  was  usually  soon  over, 
and  timed,  perhaps,  so  as  to  be  at  the  police  court 
at  2  p.m.  to  lay  informations  against  a  firm,  before 
the  magistrate,  a  formal  ceremony  soon  over. 
The  next  thing  might  be  a  visit  to  a  large  biscuit 
factory  to  investigate  a  complaint  that  a  certain 
workroom  was  hot  and  unventilated.  After  taking 
the  outside  temperature  I  remember  going  to  the 
manager's  office,  handing  in  my  official  card  saying 
I  was  going  at  once  to  the  factory.  The  repre- 
sentative knew  his  obligation,  and  I  went  straight 
to  the  block  complained  of.  .  .  .  Before  it  was 
time  to  send  in  my  report  two  letters  reached  the 
Chief  Inspector,  one  from  the  employer  to  say  I 
had  hurried  into  the  factory,  without  even  waiting 
to  announce  who  I  was,  the  other  from  a  trade 
union  official  to  say  I  had  been  quite  half  an  hour 
talking  to  the  manager  in  his  office,  so  that,  of  course, 


DAYS  AND  NIGHTS  OF  WORK         221 

the  workroom  was  well  ventilated  by  the  time  I 
arrived,  and  my  visit  useless.  An  Inspector  has  all 
eyes  on  her ;  she  may  well  go  about  her  work  warily 
and  keep  her  eye  on  the  ball. 

"  After  such  a  day's  work  I  once  found  a  wire 
waiting  for  me  at  home  from  my  Senior,  'Meet  me 
Aldgate  East  Station  midnight  for  overtime  inspec- 
tion.' This  was  thrilling,  the  Junior  Inspector  is 
always  ready  for  an  expedition  of  that  kind  .  .  . 
and  I  went  to  the  appointed  spot.  We  then  walked 
to  a  tailor's  house  in  a  street  full  of  these  workshops, 
having  a  borrowed  lamp.  ...  I  went  to  the  base- 
ment with  my  lamp,  and  my  Senior  went  upstairs 
to  an  empty  dark  workroom,  then  we  met  together 
in  the  sitting-room,  where  there  was  a  mass  of 
unfinished  coats  and  trousers  evidently  thrown 
down  in  a  hurry;  then  in  the  bedroom  we  found, 
in  bed,  fully  dressed,  a  little  girl  of  fourteen  I  had 
seen  before.  .  .  .  Proceedings  followed,  but  these 
entailed  more  days'  work,  for  the  employer  dis- 
appeared, and  was  traced  with  much  difficulty.  .  .  . 
It  was  2.30  a.m.  before  we  reached  home  that 
night,  but  what  play  could  give  more  insight 
into  some  of  the  ways  of  man  than  a  good  day's 
inspection?" 

Such  days  and  nights  of  work  of  a  Junior  Woman 
Inspector,  working  in  a  division  as  part  of  a  well- 
organised  staff  under  a  Senior,  show  the  unity  that 
lived  on  in  the  branch  from  its  earliest  years.  The 
chief  difference  that  came  with  the  years  was  in 
getting  to  closer,  more  detailed,  grips  with  the  mass 
of  work  to  be  done.  Perhaps  pioneering  risks 
became  less  evident,  but  initiative  in  devising 
methods  remained  a  strong  need,  and  variety  and 
human  interest  continued  equally  present. 

The  thoroughness  that  persisted  in  investigation 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  THE  INSPECTOR 

of  complaints  and  in  special  enquiries  is  roughly 
but  picturesquely  expressed  by  the  remark  of  a 
trade  union  secretary  to  a  Woman  Inspector:   "I 

know  you;  you  belong  to  the  same  lot  as  Miss . 

I  remember  when  she  came  down  to  our  place,  long 
ago,  like  a  ferret  in  a  rat  'ole,  she  were."  It  was 
of  the  same  Inspector  that  a  girl  in  a  factory  once 
said  to  the  deaconess  of  the  parish,  "  I  am  glad 
when  she  comes  to  our  factory,  she  makes  me  feel 
so  safe." 

To  another  Inspector,  a  Senior  in  her  office,  once 
came  seventy  or  more  mill  girls,  in  shawls,  straight 
from  their  mill,  bent  on  redress  of  a  complaint; 
twelve  came  into  her  room,  the  rest  were  on  the 
stairs  and  extended  down  into  the  street.  It  was 
not  often  so  many  arrived  at  once,  but  peace  of 
some  degree  in  the  factory  generally  followed  on 
deputations  of  this  kind. 

When  it  became  known  that  my  work  was  nearly 
finished,  and  retirement  imminent,  a  trade  union 
organiser  came  to  see  me  at  the  Home  Office.  It 
was  to  bring  farewell  messages  from  the  workers, 
and  I  said  how  very  much  I  was  touched  by  such 
messages  when  I  had  personalty  seen  so  far  less 
of  them  in  recent  years  in  the  factories  than  I  could 
have  wished.  "  They  knew  you  from  the  Women 
Inspectors  whom  they  did  see,"  was  the  instant 
reply. 

"  There  is  nothing  }^ou  cannot  ask  and  expect 
of  the  British  worker,  man  or  woman — they  have 
ability  for  anything,"  an  employer  said  to  me  in 
the  year  following  the  War  when  I  talked  with 
him  about  the  women's  wartime  work  during  his 


FRIENDSHIP  AND  TRUST  223 

convalescence  from  severe  illness  due  to  overwork 
on  munitions  in  his  foundry. 

Ability,  loyalty,  and  an  understanding  heart — 
what  a  foundation  this  country  has,  in  its  workers, 
led  by  '  such  employers,  on  which  to  build  up 
beautiful  industries  in  the  future  ! 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES;  NEW  LIGHT  ON 
HOURS,    LABOUR-SAVING,    FATIGUE,    FOOD,    AND 

EFFICIENCY 

"  Lo,  strength  is  of  the  plain  root  virtues  born: 
Strength  shall  ye  gain  by  service,  prove  in  scorn, 
Train  by  endurance,  by  devotion  shape. 
It  is  the  offspring  of  the  modest  years." 

Those  who  have  had  patience  to  go  with  me  so 
far,  in  gathering  illustrations  of  the  conditions 
under  which  women  worked  in  factories  down  to 
the  eve  of  the  War,  and  who  agree  with  my  con- 
clusions as  to  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  women 
themselves,  will  perhaps  follow  on  with  me  in  apply- 
ing the  words  of  George  Meredith  to  their  achieve- 
ments in  the  years  from  1914  to  the  close  of  1918. 

Unless  one  turns  back  to  the  very  numerous 
documents,  official  and  unofficial,  relating  to  women's 
industrial  war  work,  it  is  not  easy,  at  the  close  of 
the  year  1921,  to  recall  the  full  measure  of  pride 
expressed  by  the  nation  in  what  the  women  did 
for  it  in  time  of  need.  Almost  immediately  after 
the  Armistice  all  the  munition  workers  poured  out 
of  the  factories  and  the  substitute  women  followed 
gradually,  as  the  demobilised  men  returned  to  their 
industrial  occupations.  A  tide  of  industrial  activity 
then  rose  and  re-absorbed  practically  all  available 
industrial  women  in  their  own  normal  trades.  The 
tide  turned  suddenly  in  June,  1920,  and  increasing 

224 


WOMEN'S  NEW  OPPORTUNITY         225 

unemployment  in   1921  has  dimmed  the  memory 
of  their  achievements. 

Many  a  non-official  observer,  unfamiliar  with  the 
great  extent  and  variety  of  skilled  manufacturing 
work,  or  with  the  heaviness  and  roughness  of  much 
of  the  less  skilled  work,  done  by  women  and  girl 
industrial  workers  before  the  War,  was  astounded 
by  the  ability  with  which  women  turned  to  the  new 
kinds  of  work.  "  Not  only,"  said  one  such  observer, 
"  has  the  War  provided  an  incentive  to  women's 
work  on  a  scale  never  dreamt  of  in  times  of  peace, 
it  has  caused  women,  more  particularly  those 
engaged  in  new  occupations,  to  realise  as  they 
have  never  done  before  their  own  capacity."*  The 
old  barriers  against  their  employment  on  work 
suited  to  them  and  valuable  to  the  community 
were,  for  the  time,  steadily  and  firmly  removed  one 
after  another,  and  with  surprising  rapidity  when 
guidance  of  State  officials  was  applied  to  this 
removal.  Women  in  the  factory  realised — some 
with  astonishment — that  they  were  entitled  to  high 
praise,  and  to  hold  a  new  confidence  in  themselves 
through  the  natural  capacity  and  zeal  shown  by 
them;  first,  in  intensified  production  in  their  own 
old  industries f  of  unheard-of  quantities  of  cloth, 

*  Article  on  "  Women  and  Industrial  Changes,"  by  Sir 
Clement  Kinloch-Cooke,  M.P.,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
and  After,  for  December,  1915,  p.  1405. 

f  In  1907,  textiles  employed  690,834  women  and  girls  and 
410,743  men  and  boys;  clothing  employed  487,167  women 
and  girls  and  181,862  men  and  boys;  laundries  employed 
103,635  women  and  girls  and  11,466  men  and  boys;  fish 
curing  and  fruit  preserving  29,677  women  and  girls  and 
11,440  men  and  boys. 


226     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

articles  of  equipment,  rations,  and  so  on,  for  the 
Army  and  Navy;  secondly  (and  later),  in  speeding 
up  the  supply  of  munitions  of  war.  The  emphasis 
on  their  merits  as  industrial  war-workers  was  greater 
than  had  ever  been  explicitly  laid  on  their  ordinary 
life  -  preserving  activities  as  homemakers  and 
mothers.  Nevertheless  a  new  impetus  was  given, 
through  this  enhanced  valuation  of  women,  to 
public  health  work  for  mothers  and  infants  and 
care  of  the  child — or  maternity,  infant  and  child 
welfare,  as  it  became  customary  to  call  such  work. 

To  return  to  women  as  "  substitutes,"  a  new  gen- 
eration of  adolescent  girls  had  time  to  come  into  this 
form  of  industrial  occupation  for  female  workers — 
while  the  scope  of  "  munitions  of  war  "  grew  until 
they  nearly  engulfed  ordinary  peacetime  kinds  of 
production.  These  girls  had  never  known  anything 
but  wartime  manufacture.  They  also  had  what 
very  few  British  girls  before  them  had  had  under 
the  factory  system,  opportunities  for  training  by 
intensive  instruction,  and  they  laid  hold  of  these 
opportunities  with  remarkable  power. 

A  new  version  of  an  old  couplet  came  into  my 
mind  on  thinking  over  an  incident  in  a  remote 
rural  district  when,  one  evening  in  the  fourth  year 
of  the  War,  a  friend  of  mine  spoke  to  a  village  girl 
on  her  way  to  a  meeting  at  the  lately  founded 
Women's  Institute : 

"  '  Where  are  you  going  to,  my  pretty  maid?' 
'  To  hear  of  substitute  women,'  she  said." 

The  girl  spoke  as  if  it  were  a  subject  of  lively  interest 
to  herself,  and  one  that  would  of  course  interest 
any    intelligent    human    being.     "  Women    substi- 


WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES  227 

tutes !"  What  could  anyone  have  made  of  such 
a  term  before  a.d.  1915?  Of  butter  or  leather 
"  substitutes  "  we  had  heard,  but  not  of  women 
"  substitutes."  And  yet  many  books  were  written 
about  them  in  the  last  three  years  of  war.  Books 
that  will  be  studied  by  historians  of  the  future 
seeking  to  explain  the  extraordinary  growth  during 
a  critical  stage  of  the  War — when  millions  of  men 
had  been  taken  away  from  the  possibility  of  pro- 
duction— in  the  supply  of  shells  and  guns  to  the 
waiting  artillery  batteries;  in  the  inexhaustible 
production  of  aeroplanes;  in  the  fitting  and  re- 
fitting of  the  Army  with  its  boots,  its  razors,  its 
surgical  dressings,  its  millions  of  tins  of  preserved 
rations,  its  millions  of  smoke  helmets;  and  in  the 
gigantic  supplies  of  the  hundreds  of  other  kinds  of 
"  munitions  "  all  ceaselessly  mounting  in  quantity.* 

It  is  impracticable,  and  it  is  indeed  unnecessary, 
to  re-tell  in  detail  here  the  story  of  the  growth  in 
production  and  in  supplies,  or  to  estimate  exactly 
the  share  that  women  and  girls  took  in  making  the 
expansion  possible.  Those  who  have  not  access 
to  the  literature  can  by  a  visit  to  the  National 
War  Museum  put  themselves  in  possession  of  the 
principal  facts.  Our  concern  is  with  the  health 
conditions  and  the  attendant  circumstances  of  the 
women's  employment.  It  helps,  however,  to  a  true 
impression  to  sum  up  shortly  the  main  stages  of  their 
entry  into  new  forms  of  work. 

When   men  first   trooped   in   their   hundreds   of 

*  Seo  Memorandum  on  War  Office  Contracts.  Cd.  8447, 
and  "  Labour  and  Capital  after  the  War,"  by  S.  J.  Chapman, 
C.B.E.,pp.  73-6. 

16 


228     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

thousands,  voluntarily,  to  the  colours  in  1914, 
industrial  women  found  their  outlet  for  the  same 
impulse  to  serve  the  nation  in  intensified  and 
extended  work  at  their  own  more  or  less  customary 
callings.  They  found  it  at  the  sewing  machine, 
knitting  machine,  weaving  loom,  boot-upper  stitch- 
ing machine,  tin-cutting  power  press,  soldering 
bench,  at  tinning  of  meat,  fruit  and  vegetable 
preserves  for  rations,  and  so  on.  Even  with  this 
added  intensity  of  their  work  and  the  lengthened 
hours  of  employment  factory  women  could  do  "  a 
bit  of  knitting  for  the  soldiers  and  sailors  " — so  that 
some  of  them  could  say,  "  We  never  seems  to  get 
any  rest,  but  if  we  did  not  do  it,  no  one  else  could."* 
They  had  to  play  an  indispensable,  and,  in  some 
cases,  a  predominant  part  in  supplying  the  Services 
with  textile  materials,  clothing,  blankets,  mattress 
covers,  with  various  kinds  of  bodily  equipment,  such 
as  haversacks,  bandoliers,  light  leather,  and  mis- 
cellaneous small  metal  articles,  and  with  tents,  and 
all  kinds  of  general  equipment,  some  time  before 
their  share  in  the  production  of  "  munitions  of 
war  "  in  the  form  of  ordnance,  ammunition,  air- 
craft, chemicals,  etc.,  was  even  thought  of.  And 
claims  for  women's  aid  in  the  general  service  of  the 
home  community,  in  transport,  distribution,  clerical 
and  commercial  work,  were  strongly  pressed  before 
the  great  part  they  were  to  play  (chiefly  by  aid  of 
dilution  of  labour)  in  engineering  and  the  larger 
metal  trades  came  in  sight. 

A  second  phase  in  the   industrial   wartime  em- 
ployment of  women  came  with  the  first  thoughts  of 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1914,  p.  45. 


RELEASING  MEN  229 

the  "  substitution  "  of  women  to  release  men  for 
military  service  in  the  less  essential  manufacturing 
industries,  next  in  industries  essential  for  national 
needs,  and  in  those  where  important  export  trade 
could  (it  was  then  believed)  be  developed  or 
maintained. 

At  the  request  of  the  Army  Council,  the  Home 
Office  and  Board  of  Trade  began  a  series  of  con- 
ferences with  associations  of  employers  and  workers 
to  consider  what  reorganisation  of  work  might  be 
necessary  to  free  as  many  men  as  possible.  This 
work,  requiring  some  diplomacy,  was  largely  under 
the  guidance  of  Factory  Inspectors,  men  and  women, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  negotiate  temporary  sus- 
pensions of  recognised  trade  union  rules,  at  the 
same  time  providing  safe  and  suitable  conditions 
for  the  women  employed  in  processes  that  were  new 
to  them,  and  heretofore  arranged  to  suit  men's 
different  ways  of  working.  Agreements  were 
secured  in  a  number  of  trades,  including  hosiery 
and  other  textiles,  boot  and  shoe  manufacture, 
leather  tanning,  woodworking,  baking,  earthenware 
and  china  manufacture,  printing,  and  glove  making.* 
These  agreements  aimed  both  at  preventing  mis- 
understandings and  dislocations  at  a  critical  time, 
and  at  getting  security  for  future  maintenance  of 
the  established  standard  of  the  life  of  industrial 
workers. 

*  See  Annual  Reports  of  Chief  Inspector  for  1915,  1916, 
and  1917;  collection  of  Pamphlets  on  "Substitution  of 
Women  in  Industry,"  1917,  and  Home  Office  Memoran- 
dum on  Substitution  of  Women  in  non-Munition  Factories, 
1919. 


230     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

Orders,  known  as  "Emergency  Orders,"*  were 
made  by  the  Home  Office,  allowing  relaxations  of  the 
law  relating  to  hours  and  times  of  work  of  women 
and  young  persons,  both  in  munitions  and  non-muni- 
tions industries,  to  meet  the  exceptional  circum- 
stances of  the  time.  Certain  fresh  safeguards  for 
health  or  safety  were  embodied  in  these  Orders, 
of  which  foremost  was  an  obligation  laid  on  the 
employer  to  provide  means  for  preparing  and  taking 
meals  at  the  works,  and  next  supervision  by  com- 
petent women  to  maintain  good  conditions. 

There  were  certain  large  and  heavy  trades  where 
no  agreements  between  employers  and  workers 
could  be  arranged  owing  to  lack  of  organisation  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  either  of  employers  or  of 
workers,  and  here  the  Inspectors  closely  guided  the 
course  of  replacement  of  men  and  substitution  of 
women — e.g.,  in  flour  milling,  rubber  manufacture, 
oil  and  seed  crushing,  soap  making,  sugar  refining, 
paper  making,  cement  making,  and  in  gasworks. 
In  all  these  "  non-munition  "  industries — which 
tended  more  and  more  to  provide  material  of  war, 
and  thus  to  become  technically  "  munitions  "  as 
the  War  progressed — they  advised  employers  on 
the  necessary  modification  and  reorganisation  of 
processes,  as  well  as  on  good  conditions  for  produc- 
tion. In  the  factories,  where  women  had  not  before 
been  employed  in  process  work,  a  noticeable  solici- 
tude was  frequently  shown  by  the  employers  and 
managers  for  protection  of  the  health  and  safety 
of  the  women,  and  all  paid  tribute  to  their  adapta- 

*  These  were  made  under  Section  150  of  the  Act  of  1901, 
providing  for  public  emergency. 


QUICK  ADAPTABILITY  231 

bility  and  natural  quickness,  as  well  as  to  their  fine 
spirit. 

It  was  in  a  large  shell  factory,  early  in  1915, 
before  the  immense  development  of  the  Ministry  of 
Munitions,  that  a  foreman  said  to  me  as  we  stood 
watching  the  then  novel  and  arresting  sight  of 
numerous  women  and  girls  intent  upon  their  work 
at  lathes,  "  There  is  more  in  this  than  people  think; 
women  have  been  too  much  kept  back."  Several 
Inspectors  said  that  the  cotton  workers,  set  free 
by  unemployment  in  their  own  great  trade,  par- 
ticularly enjoyed  their  new  work  in  shell  making, 
and  found  it  less  heavy,  and  conditions  better, 
than  in  the  textile  factories.  Munition  factories  in 
Birmingham  profited  early  in  1915  by  a  temporary 
depression  in  the  Staffordshire  Potteries,  receiving 
contingents  of  intelligent  women  from  gilding  and 
painting  shops — high-grade  labour — for  the  new 
work.  In  Lancashire  one  heard  of  young  women 
proud  to  have  learnt  how  to  grind  tools  and  set 
machines.  In  wire-drawing  and  engineering  trades 
an  Inspector  said  it  was  remarkable,  considering  the 
half-heartedness  of  the  initial  experiment  of  employ- 
ing women,  how  general  was  the  satisfaction  over 
its  success.  It  was  an  everyday  occurrence  to  be 
told  frankly  by  foremen  that  "  the  women  are  doing 
very  well  indeed,  much  better  than  I  ever  thought 
they  could." 

Then  came  the  third  and,  technically,  the  greatest 
experiment  in  women's  employment  during  the 
War,  under  the  organisation  of  the  Ministry  of 
Munitions — their  concentration  on  engineering  and 
munitions   supplies  with    much   dilution  and  with 


232      THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

highly  specialised  training  in  processes.  It  was 
this  stage  that  led  not  only  to  the  immense  addi- 
tional power  in  repetitive  production,  but  also  to 
the  discovery  in  engineering,  by  enthusiastic 
"dilution"  officers,  of  certain  processes  requiring 
manual  dexterity  and  delicacy  of  touch,  in  which 
women  could  do  better  than  men,  and  some  even 
which  women  alone  could  do.*  This  phase  can 
only  be  fairly  studied  in  published  documents, 
catalogues,  and  illustrations  issued  by  the  Ministry 
of  Munitions,  and  at  the  National  War  Museum. 
It  was  under  the  Ministry  of  Munitions  that  the 
first  systematic  attempt  was  made  to  superimpose 
personal  conditions  of  welfare — an  essential  for 
good  output — on  the  general  hygiene  of  environ- 
ment in  the  factory  already  required  by  the  Factory 
Act.  And  one  of  the  earliest  'steps  taken  by  Mr. 
Seebohm  Rowntree,  the  Director  of  Welfare,  ap- 
pointed in  the  close  of  1915  for  "  controlled  "  muni- 
tion factories,  was  to  obtain  through  me  from  my 
staff  of  Women  Inspectors  a  detailed  survey  of 
conditions  actually  obtaining  in  each  large  "  con- 
trolled "  and  national  factory,  with  our  recom- 
mendations on  the  arrangements  desirable  for  the 
welfare  of  the  women  and  girls. |  This  work  was 
carried  out  in  1916  and  1917,  and  it  is  touched  on 
in  my  next  and  last  chapter. 

The  fourth  and  final  new  experience  for  industrial 

*  See  "  Labour  and  Capital  after  the  War,"  by  S.  J. 
Chapman,  C.B.E.,  1919;  "Worn six's  War  Work,"  issued  by 
the  War  Office,  Chiswiek  Press;  and  Various  Reports  on 
Dilution  issued  by  the  Ministry  of  Munitions. 

|  See  Annual  Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector  for  1916, 
p.  9,  and  for  1913,  p.  31. 


HEAVY  MANUAL  LABOUR  233 

women,  during  the  War,  came  with  the  urgent  need 
in  1917  and  1918  of  trying  to  substitute  them  for 
men,  not  only  in  process  work  that  was  likely  to 
be  suitable  for  them,  but  also  in  many  processes 
and  manual  work  heavier  than  had  yet  been  at- 
tempted— for  example,  in  the  forging  of  bullet-proof 
plates,  in  driving  overhead  cranes,  in  certain  heavy 
foundry  processes,  in  a  few  operations  in  ship- 
building yards,  in  retort-house  work,  in  internal 
scaling  of  boilers,  in  ferro-concrete  pile  making,  and 
in  new  varieties  of  heavy  labouring  work.  None 
of  these  (surviving  the  experimental  stages),* 
except  possibly  scaling  of  boilers,  appear  to  be 
heavier  or  more  laborious,  however,  than  work 
done  long  years  before  by  women  in  tin-plate  works, 
in  fireproof  brick  works,  in  timber  yards,  or  gal- 
vanising works;  and  certainly  none  surpassed  in 
dirt  or  disagreeableness  the  old  work  of  women  in 
such  processes  as  gut  scraping,  rag  sorting,  or 
"  breeze  sifting." 

It  was  chiefly  in  these  last  two  years  of  the  War 
that  development  of  women's  employment  took  place 
in  chemical  works,  heavy  metal  works,  and  in  gas- 
works. Some  really  interesting  developments  took 
place.  In  forge  work — for  example,  in  one  factory 
making  heavy  tank  parts — the  whole  of  the  process 
work  was  done  by  women,  numbering  300;  men, 
numbering  six,  being  employed  solely  in  keeping 

*  "  Rightly  unsuccessful  are  some  experiments  in 
unsuitable  directions  ...  in  operating  the  tilting  furnaces 
in  brass  casting  ...  it  was  too  exhausting  even  for  short 
spells,  and  very  few  men  coming  fresh  to  the  work  can  stand 
it  for  long  at  a  time." — Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector, 
19] 7,  p.  12. 


234   THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

machines  in  running  order.  "  The  women  work  the 
furnaces,  moulding  presses,  and  do  the  grinding, 
besides  trolleying,  stacking,  loading  on  to  wagons, 
and  women  'chemists'  also  take  the  temperatures."* 
Here  close  investigation  (made  by  one  of  the  "  first- 
aid  "  Inspectors)  showed  that  there  were  no  signs 
of  serious  injury  amongst  the  women.  The  same 
conclusion  was  reached  by  her  as  regards  women 
drivers  of  large  overhead  cranes — a  dangerous 
occupation,  however,  in  which  some  women  met 
with  fatal  accidents.  A  cement  works  in  Scotland 
was  run  almost  entirely  by  women's  labour,  and 
their  employment  in  this  heavy  work  had  been  made 
successful  by  the  aid  of  mechanical  appliances,  the 
only  men  being  rotary  kiln  men — doing  very  heavy 
and  hot  work,  needing  considerable  training — 
besides  foremen  and  engineers.  At  a  large  steel 
works  in  Yorkshire,  where  the  managers  were  of 
opinion  in  1916  that  women  would  be  useless  to 
them,  there  were,  in  1917,  300  employed  to  their 
satisfaction  in  yard  work,  painting,  labelling,  and 
crane  driving.  "  Loading  and  unloading  of  ore  is 
heavy,  and  can  only  be  done  by  the  women  without 
injury  if  they  take  the  work  slowly  and  quietly. "f 
Inspectors  found  that  some  women,  either  from  the 
natural  but  dangerous  desire  to  show  their  strength 
or  to  get  through  their  work  quickly,  lifted  weights 
far  too  heavy  for  them.  A  foreman,  however,  in 
charge  of  construction  work  at  a  blast  furnace  who 
had  trained  women  under  him,  "  spoke  exceedingly 
highly  of  them,  and  said  he  would  be  willing  to 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1917,  p.  12. 
t  Ibid.,  1917,  p.  13. 


METAL,  GAS,  AND  CHEMICAL  WORKS  235 

undertake  any  ferroconcrete  work  with  women 
only."  They  had  made  over  1,000  piles  31  feet  in 
length;  they  were  bending  and  preparing  all  the 
steelwork  used  in  the  construction  of  the  wharf, 
bridges,  etc.;  they  worked  the  stone-crushing 
machines  and  concrete  mixer,  stacked  the  piles 
when  made,  and  discharged  stone,  iron,  etc.,  from 
railway  trucks.  Managers  of  gasworks  expressed 
surprise  at  the  good  class  of  women  found  willing  to 
undertake  this  hot,  heavy,  and  rather  dirty  work. 
In  the  severe  winter  of  1916-17,  when  women  were 
first  being  tried  in  heavy  processes  in  gasworks,  a 
manager,  praising  their  grit  and  pluck,  said,  "  If  they 
stick  this,  they  will  stick  anything." 

In  such  places  good  protective  clothing  and 
specially  adapted  implements,  such  as  light  barrows 
and  shovels,  automatic  weight-lifting  appliances, 
and  other  labour  and  fatigue-saving  plant  and 
machinery,  played  an  immensely  important  part 
in  enabling  the  women  to  do  the  work.  Inspectors 
unanimously  held  that  at  no  time  had  legislative 
protection  for  women,  and  competent  inspection, 
been  more  needed  than  in  these  final  years  of  the 
War,  when  women  were  eagerly  pressing  into  pro- 
cesses and  heavy  labour  of  a  kind  new  to  them. 
There  was  generally  an  ample  supply  of  women  avail- 
able, and  the  only  places  where  one  heard  of  shortage 
were  in  some  of  their  old  factory  occupations,  where 
conditions  often  remained  at  a  lower  level  than  in 
the  new  occupations,  and  where  wages  did  not  rise 
until  later  to  meet  the  increased  cost  of  living. 

In  1917  and  1918  also,  some  marked  development 
of  women's  employment  took  place   in  relatively 


236     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

light  processes,  both  skilled  and  semi-skilled,  in 
certain  non-munition  industries,  which  were  per- 
fectly suited  to  their  physical  ability,  and  for  which 
some  intensive  training  was  open  to  them  in  technical 
colleges.  The  most  interesting  examples,  I  think, 
were  scientific  instrument  making,  in  which  industry, 
by  March,  1918,  substitution  of  women  had  become 
general  in  some  processes  and  frequent  in  others; 
and  in  leather-case  making  and  fancy  leather  work. 
Especially  in  the  former  of  these  industries  new 
openings  appeared  for  women  as  works'  chemists 
or  in  laboratory  research  at  the  factory,  as  well  as 
in  the  manufacture  of  glass  prisms,  lenses,  thermo- 
meters, and  many  metal  processes.  As  regards  the 
future,  the  Home  Office  Memorandum  on  Sub- 
stitution of  Women  declared  in  1919  that  there 
were  "  good  prospects  for  women  in  this  industry."* 
Early  in  1920,  however,  "  the  steady  withdrawal  of 
women  from  employment  in  men's  industries  that 
began  after  the  Armistice  was  almost  completed." 
And  I  was  obliged  to  conclude  at  the  end  of  the 
year  that  there  was  "  as  yet  no  fulfilment  of  the 
expectations  that  after  the  War  a  body  of  industries 
and  operations  offering  a  hopeful  field  of  fresh 
employment  would  be  open  to  women  where  their 
War  experience  could  be  turned  to  account.  On 
the  contrary,  an  automatically  operating  force  has 
closed  all  these  expected  new  avenues. "f 

As  the  number  of  Men  Inspectors  decreased  during 

*  Homo  Office  Memorandum  on  Substitution  of  Women, 
1919,  pp.  7  and  48. 

■]•  Annual  lloport  of  Chief  Inspector,  1920,  p.  16,  and  the 
R     (oration  of  Pre- War  Practice  in  Industry  Act,  1919. 


SUITABLE  PROCESSES,  CONFERENCES  237 

the  early  part  of  the  War,  through  claims  of  military 
duty  and  other  national  service  where  their  techni- 
cal knowledge  and  experience  was  invaluable,  the 
number  of  Women  Inspectors  gradually  increased, 
but  only  to  a  total  of  thirty.  Much  of  the  almost 
incredible  amount  of  work  they  managed  to  get 
through  was  done  by  conference  with,  and  informa- 
tion and  advice  to,  other  bodies  of  workers — the 
Women  Welfare  Officers  and  Dilution  Officers  of 
the  Ministry  of  Munitions,  the  Superintendents  of 
Women's  Labour  in  munition  works,  and  the  Local 
Advisory  Committees  (under  the  Ministry  of 
Labour),  concerned  with  the  welfare  outside  the 
factories  of  the  immense  aggregations  of  workers 
who  were  drawn  away  from  their  homes  into  great 
centres  for  production  of  munitions  of  war.  Some 
of  them  served  also  on  various  Central  Committees, 
of  which  the  two  foremost  were  the  Health  of 
Munition  Workers  Committee  and  the  Women's 
Employment  Committee  under  the  Ministry  of 
Reconstruction.  When  the  Ministry  of  National 
Service  was  set  up,  the  main  lines  of  the  great  task 
of  fitting  substitute  women  into  men's  industrial 
work  were  already  planned,  and  much  of  the  sub- 
stitution was  already  carried  into  effect  under  the 
guidance  of  the  whole  Factory  Inspectorate  in 
co-operation  with  the  Employment  Department, 
Ministry  of  Labour;  and  when  several  of  the 
Men  Inspectors  were  "  seconded  "  to  the  Ministry 
of  National  Service  the  work  continued  by  co- 
operation between  the  Departments. 

Much  had  to  be  done  in  bringing  factories,  and 
whole  industries,  up  to  the  same  standard  in  making 


238     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

the  necessary  substitution.  In  some  factories  the 
advance  was  more  rapid  than  in  others — far  more 
reliance  being  shown  in  putting  women  into  posi- 
tions of  real  responsibility.  For  example,  in  only 
one  malting  house  was  it  found  that  a  forewoman 
was  in  complete  charge  of  the  women's  work,  with 
technical  responsibility  for  regulating  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  kiln  and  judging  the  right  time  for 
"turning"  the  floors.  And  in  an  exceptional 
fruit-preserving  factory  output  was  doubled  and 
engineers'  repairs  reduced  by  half  for  the  season, 
when  a  forewoman  was  put  in  complete  control, 
a  control  which  included  not  only  the  jam-making 
department,  but  also  the  maintenance  in  good 
working  order  of  machinery,  boiler,  and  engine.* 

Inspectors  sometimes  expressed  disappointment 
at  the  limited  confidence  shown  by  employers  in 
substituting  women  in  the  higher  posts  of  industry, 
but  enough  was  done  to  "  suggest  a  fair  promise 
of  future  development  of  women's  natural  aptitude 
for  organising."  The  difficulty  lay  even  more  in 
that  direction  than  in  process  work,  through  lack 
of  sufficient  opportunity  for  women  to  obtain  broad 
and  sound  technical  training  in  the  short  time 
available.  In  large  munition  works,  however,  in 
two  ways  useful  examples  were  given  of  technical 
control  by  women;  women  "  charge-hands,"  having 
gone  through  intensive  training  in  processes,  con- 
trolled the  operations  of  small  groups  of  workers, 
sometimes  men  and  boys  as  well  as  women  and 
girls;  and  in  the  work  of  Women  Welfare  Superin- 
tendents there  was  a  tendency  to  develop  their 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chid  [inspector,  1917,  pp.  11  and  14. 


FROM  HOME  TO  FACTORY  239 

responsibility  in  the  direction  of  carrying  out  some 
of  the  functions  of  a  manager.* 

Although  a  large  number  of  women  came  for  the 
first  time,  from  domestic  work  and  from  home  life, 
into  industry  during  the  years  of  strongest  demand 
for  substitutes  and  munition  workers,!  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  increase  in  these  two 
classes  came  from  the  return  to  the  factories  of 
former  industrial  workers,  and  by  their  transfer 
from  the  less  essential  trades.  The  highest  pro- 
portion of  those  entering  from  domestic  work  or 
home  life  was  usually  found  in  factories  situated  in 
localities  where  other  industries  were  not  present. 
For  example,  in  two  chemical  works  in  the  country 
it  was  found  that  half  the  women  came  from  home 
life,  one-quarter  from  domestic  service,  and  the 
remainder  from  other  factories.  In  a  Manchester 
flour  mill  one-third  came  from  home  life,  a  few 
from  domestic  service,  and  many  from  miscellaneous 
factories. 

It  was  in  such  places  as  these,  where  the  sub- 
stitute women  were  unfamiliar  with  factory  life 
and  with  the  safeguards  provided  by  Factory  Acts 
and  Orders,  that  protection  by  a  trained  Inspec- 
torate was  found  to  be  most  needed.  Two  points 
of  considerable  interest  came  out  in  the  complaints 
from  women  themselves.  In  the  years  1914-15, 
when  long  and  exceptional  hours  (whether  entirely 
illegal  or  else  sanctioned  by  Emergency  Orders) 
were   at   their   highest   point,    the   women   worked 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  9  and  13. 

f  Who  increased  until  they  numbered  900,000  women 
and  girls. 


240     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

willingly;  and  they  complained  only  rarely  and  in 
extreme  cases.  On  the  whole,  there  was  a  great 
proportionate  rise,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  com- 
plaints relating  to  matters  of  sanitation  and  safety, 
63-1  per  cent,  of  the  whole  in  1917,  as  compared 
with  47-3  per  cent,  in  1913. 

The  working  of  excessive  and  irregular  hours,  a 
natural  outcome  of  the  confused  haste  for  enormous 
production  at  the  beginning  of  the  War,  seemed  to 
bring  new  light  to  many  employers  on  the  useless- 
ness  of  long  hours  and  long,  unbroken  spells  for 
continued  large  output,  however  great  the  generally 
prevalent  willingness  of  the  workers  to  help  to  their 
utmost.  Already  before  the  War,  as  we  have  seen 
in  Chapter  II.,  it  was  a  commonplace  in  Inspectors' 
reports  that  the  strain  of  the  legal  twelve-hours' 
day  of  absence  from  home*  was  too  great,  having 
regard  to  the  home  duties  of  most  women,  who  had 
frequently  also  a  long  distance  to  travel  to  and  from 
work.  In  the  first  year  of  the  War  the  Inspectors 
showed  that  the  main  resistance  to  excessive  over- 
time came  more  from  the  employers'  side  (in  spite 
of  exceptions  among  them)  than  from  the  workers. 
In  a  Crown  factory  the  experience  was  "  that  any 
lengthening  of  the  day,  beyond  6  p.m.  and  a  total 
of  eight  and  a  half  hours'  work  daily,  exhausts  the 
workers,  and  is  of  no  advantage  in  increasing  out- 
put. ...  A  well-known  wholesale  clothier  em- 
ploying a  thousand  women  on  Government  contracts 
gave  it  as  his  well-considered  opinion  that  the  full 
period    allowed    under    the    Factory    Act  ...  is 

*  Ten  and  a  half  hours  net  and  sixty  hours  weekly 
maximum. 


LONG  HOURS  FOUND  UNPROFITABLE    241 

sufficient,  and  any  work  beyond  this  is  useless:  it 
exhausts  the  workers  and  does  not  pay.  .  .  .  The 
manager  of  a  powder-bag  factory  .  .  .  found,  after 
some  weeks'  experience,  that  the  pieceworkers  were 
making  less  during  overtime  than  during  the  normal 
period  of  employment.  ...  A  cardboard  box 
manufacturer  told  me  he  had  put  his  workers  on 
shorter  hours  only  to  find  that  their  output  and 
earnings  were  equal  to  those  on  the  full  factory 
day."*  The  interesting  and  very  valuable  researches 
made  by  scientific  investigators  for  the  Health  of 
Munition  Workers  Committee  and  for  the  Home 
Office  regarding  fatigue,  did  but  amplify  and  give 
scientific  confirmation  to  the  commonsense  reasonings 
and  conclusions  of  many  manufacturers  about  hours 
of  work.  Nevertheless,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war- 
time pressure,  it  was  clear  that  some  deviation  from 
the  fixed  Factory  Act  limits  was  necessary  to 
counterbalance  delays  in  getting  out  contracts,  dis- 
locations in  movement  of  supplies  of  materials,  and 
other  interferences  with  a  continuous  run  of  work  in 
making  up  articles.  The  Emergency  Orders  granted 
to  numerous  individual  firms  at  the  beginning  were 
unquestionably  necessary.  Later,  as  experience 
grew,  it  was  possible  to  standardise  these  for  whole 
industries  and  groups  of  industries,  greatly  to  reduce 
night  work  and  overtime,  nearly  to  abolish  Sunday 
work,  and  ultimately  to  prohibit  the  night  work 
for  young  girls  under  sixteen  and  for  boys  under 
fourteen  years,  that  had  been  temporarily  permitted 
at  the  outset  of  the  national  emergency.  The  new 
evidence  gathered  by  scientific  investigators  gave 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1914,  pp.  40-41. 


242     THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

increased  strength  to  older  humanitarian  arguments, 
as  well  as  fresh  point  to  the  conclusions  of  certain 
practical  managers  that  excessive  hours  without 
regular  intervals  defeat  their  purpose  of  speeding 
up  production.  The  experiments  that  were  made, 
under  Home  Office  orders  in  various  shift  systems,* 
showed  how  increased  output  might,  in  times  of 
pressure,  be  obtained  from  limited  plant  and 
machines  without  exceeding  the  working  powers 
of  the  delicate  "  human  machine."  The  finding 
of  the  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee  in 
1915,  that  the  strain  of  long  hours  had  not,  so  far, 
"  caused  any  serious  breakdown  among  workers, 
though  many  statements  indicative  of  fatigue  had 
been  received,"  was  confirmed  by  reports  of  Factory 
Inspectors  coming  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 
No  marked  increase  in  sickness  rates  could  be 
found,  yet  among  foremen  and  managers,  who  were 
less  able  than  workers  to  take  time  off,  and  among 
individual  older  men  and  women,  there  were  cases 
where  health  certainly  suffered  from  the  strain. 
After  the  War  was  over  an  experienced  Welfare 
Superintendent  told  me  of  great  lassitude  amongst 
girls  under  her  care,  and  she  said  that  it  had  been 
necessary  to  send  a  high  proportion  of  them  to 
holiday  homes  before  they  quite  recovered  their 
natural  elasticity  and  capacity  for  a  full  ordinary 
day's  work. 

Women's  weekly  and  daily  totals  in  the  stress 

*  Such  as  two  daily  8-hour  shifts,  three  8-hour  shifts  in 
the  twenty-four  hours,  and  two  10  or  10  J -hour  shifts  in 
the  twenty-four  hours.  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief 
Inspector  for  1915,  p.  9;  for  1917,  p.  7;  and  1918,  pp.  2-12. 


FATIGUE  AND  ITS  PREVENTION       243 

of  the  earlier  years  of  War,  long  and  fatiguing  as  they 
were,  rarely  rose  (apart  from  special  aberrations 
which  successful  prosecutions  did  much  to  check) 
to  the  extremes  too  commonly  reached  by  men 
munition  workers.  Forewomen  and  women  super- 
intendents were  more  often  employed  in  the  later 
than  the  earlier  years,  and  thus  were  spared  some  of 
the  excessive  overstrain  that  at  first  fell  on  foremen 
and  managers.  In  factories  where  the  long  double 
twelve-hour  shift  system  with  alternate  weeks  of 
night  and  day  work  for  each  shift  obtained,  evidence 
of  absenteeism  and  poor  timekeeping  made  it  highly 
probable  that  accumulating  fatigue  and  overstrain 
had  been  partly  averted  by  the  natural  tendency 
of  the  workers  to  take  an  occasional  day  or  half- 
day  off.  It  was  truly  fortunate,  however,  for  the 
ultimate  health  of  the  people  that  as  strictness  of 
discipline,  in  controlled  factories,  in  enforcing  regular 
attendance  of  the  worker  under  penalty  grew,  some 
reasonable  standardisation  of  shift  systems  and 
considerable  development  of  canteens  and  other 
welfare  arrangements  had  been  secured. 

By  the  end  of  1917  it  was  evident  that  for  what- 
ever reason,  probably  through  better  wages,  pro- 
viding much  better  food  than  formerly,  and  through 
increased  personal  care  of  the  workers  in  the  fac- 
tories, sickness  among  the  women  was  not  increasing, 
but  rather  diminishing.*     The  evidence  given  before 

*  In  1915  a  woman  working  daily  in  a  munition  factory 
from  7  a.m.  to  8.30  p.m.,  on  Saturdays  from  7  a.m.  to 
8.45  p.m.,  and  Sundays  from  8  a.m.  to  5  p.m.,  besides 
spending  two  hours  daily  in  transit  to  and  from  her  work, 
informed  an  Inspector    that  she  was  able  to  work  these 

17 


244    THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

the  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee  was 
that  sickness  benefit  was  lessening,  and  I  learned 
by  special  enquiry  that  an  almoner's  records  in  a 
large  general  hospital  in  a  great  munition  area 
showed  that  as  few  as  thirty  women  and  girl  muni- 
tion workers  had  attended  as  out-patients  in  six 
months. 

Even  though  much  detail  as  regards  the  best 
daily  and  weekly  period  and  spells  of  hours  remains 
to  be  worked  out  by  practical  experimentation  for 
different  types  of  factory  work  with  differing  kinds 
and  degrees  of  effort  and  strain  involved,  the  large- 
scale  demonstrations  regarding  conditions  and  out- 
put in  wartime  have  both  added  to  our  knowledge 
and  also  popularly  spread  that  knowledge.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  the  full  potential  strength  of 
the  social  motive  in  industry — the  sentiment  of 
national  service — has  been  at  all  fairly  grasped  in 
its  bearing  on  true  success  in  industrial  production. 
Yet  the  leaven  is  there,  its  workings  can  be  seen, 
and  it  is  the  one  unalloyed  gain  that  came  from  the 
stupendous  and  terrible  effort  of  production  for 
"  munitions  of  war."  The  new  lights  that  this 
effort  brought  on  the  dependence  of  good  output 
and  efficiency  on  right  adjustment  of  hours,  labour- 
saving   appliances,  fatigue  prevention,  food,  have 

long  hours  chiefly  because  of  the  good  food  she  was  able 
to  obtain  as  the  result  of  increased  wages.  She  had  an 
invalid  husband  and  six  children  under  twelve  years  to 
support.  Although  she  paid  a  woman  8s.  a  week  to  mind 
her  children  and  spent  2s.  6d.  on  tram  fares  weekly,  still 
her  wages  allowed  her  to  feed  better  than  she  had  ever  done 
before. 


FUTURE  STATUS  OF  WOMEN    245 

but  a  limited  value  for  the  commonwealth  if  the 
aims  of  industry  continue  to  be  "  merely  material 
production  of  wealth  and  things  unrelated  to 
spiritual  values  "  or  social  ends.*  Women's  ex- 
tended entry  into  industry  from  1915  to  1918  did 
indeed  bring  social  considerations  into  the  condi- 
tions of  work,  and  some  of  these  things  remain. 
Yet  they  can  hardly  last  if  they  do  not  lead  to 
"  the  ordering,  the  comforting,  and  the  beautiful 
adornment  of  the  State  "  in  its  organised  industrial 
capacity. 

During  the  time  of  the  greatest  zeal  for  intro- 
duction of  women  as  "  substitutes  "  into  men's 
industries,  and  well  on  into  1919,  it  seemed  almost 
at  times  to  be  forgotten  how  essentially  non- 
economic  and  temporary  both  basis  and  framework 
of  the  introduction  were.  Except  as  regards  some 
extensions  within  women's  own  traditional  indus- 
tries, women  were  in  reality  in  these  new  places 
simply  as  "  substitutes,"  and,  in  nearly  all,  under 
a  solemn  covenant  that  it  was  solely  for  the  duration 
of  the  War.  An  entirely  new  peacetime  departure 
is  needed  for  application  of  women's  freshly  proven 
powers  to  new  industrial  developments.  In  the 
future  women  will  surely  attain  their  better  indus- 
trial status  not  as  "  substitutes,"  not  as  secondary 
men,  but  in  their  own  fields  (with  aid  of  better 
training),  and  also  in  other  carefully  chosen  fields, 
as  joint  labourers  with  men.  The  War  emphasised 
a  very  true  and  natural  interchangeability  of  men 
and    women    for    many   emergencies.      The    new 

*  See  "  Labour  and  Capital  after  the  War,"  already 
cited,  p.  85. 


246      THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

"  Science  of  Labour  "  has  perhaps  come  at  the 
very  time  of  most  need,  with  insistence  on  the 
essential  complementariness  of  the  industrial  apti- 
tudes of  men  and  women.*  There  at  least — in 
industrial  labour — their  complete  fusion  would  mean 
an  economic  and  social  loss. 

While  the  hopeful  expansion  in  industry  follow- 
ing very  soon  after  the  War  lasted,  there  was  a 
remarkable,  though  temporary,  re-absorption  of 
women  into  their  own  former  occupations.  Thej' 
took  with  them  certain  great  gains  from  their  recent 
experiences.  They  brought  into  their  old  industrial 
environment  new  ideas  of  fellowship  as  well  as 
knowledge  of  fresh  processes  and  of  better  rates  of 
pay;  they  brought  strengthened  capacity  for  trade 
union  organisation  as  well  as  new  ideas  of  the  value 
of  intensive  training.  Not  least,  they  brought  a 
new  demand  for  better  means  at  the  works  of 
preparing  and  taking  sufficient  food,  which  is  the 
material  foundation  of  all  efficient  labour. 

We  may  here  sum  up  the  possible  permanent 
gains  to  industry  as  well  as  to  women  themselves, 
brought  from  their  wartime  experiences  in  factories, 
ready  for  the  time  when  expansion  of  trade  again 
begins. 

It  has  been  seen  that  in  many  ways  women  have 
far  greater  powers  of  endurance,  activity,  and  enter- 
prise— quite  apart  from  new  forms  of  skill — than  was 
formerly  admitted  or  expected  of  them.  We  know 
that  they  gain  in  health  by  fresh  kinds  of  outdoor 
and  labouring  work  not  previously  customary  for 

*  See  above,  p.  198,  and  "Science  of  Labour/'  by  Dr. 
Josefa  Jotoyko,  1919  (G.  Routlcdge  and  Sons,  Ltd.). 


GAIN  FROM  WAR  EXPERIENCES      247 

them.  We  have  seen  conclusive  evidence  of  their 
capacity  to  quickly  become  proficient  at  engineering 
tasks — with  the  aid  of  semi-automatic  machinery 
that  is  often  intricate — and  of  their  powers  of 
sustained  interest  in  such  work  under  great  pressure 
for  output. 

The  enquiries  and  valuable  memoranda  of  the 
Health  of  Munition  Workers  Committee*  brought 
out,  more  completely  than  any  previous  official 
reports  had  done,  the  practical  importance  of 
selective  care  in  setting  women  and  young  workers 
on  to  work,  as  well  as  the  need  for  the  improved 
personal  conditions  and  skilled  supervision  by 
women,  that  are  considered  in  the  next  chapter. 

In  addition  to  the  gain  of  a  higher  standard  in 
women's  own  expectation  as  regards  their  conditions, 
there  is  a  new  atmosphere  in  the  factories,  traceable 
to  the  women's  increased  self-reliance  engendered 
by  the  appreciation  that  has  been  expressed  for 
their  work  and  capacity.  No  one  can  realise  this 
more  thoroughly  than  Women  Factory  Inspectors, 
meeting  it  as  they  do  on  the  spot,  and  there  com- 
paring past  and  present.  In  a  factory  where 
formerly  a  woman  worker  would  not  have  disclosed 
the  fact  that  she  belonged  to  a  trade  union,  there 
is  a  woman  shop  steward  ready  to  come  forward 
and  show  the  Inspector  round,  the  manager  expect- 
ing her  to  do  so.f 

*  Appointed  in  the  summer  of  1915  "to  consider  and 
advise  on  questions  of  industrial  fatigue,  hours  of  labour, 
and  other  matters  affecting  the  permanent  health  and 
physical  efficiency  of  workers  in  munition  factories." 

|  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1919,  p.  10. 


248    THE  WAR  AND  WOMEN  SUBSTITUTES 

There  is  a  new  outlook  on  the  possibility  of 
applying  science  as  well  as  humanitarian  motives 
to  use  and  care  of  labour.  To  no  workers  is  this 
more  important  than  to  women,  with  the  dual 
claims  on  them  of  home  cares  and  bread  winning. 
The  studies  of  the  Industrial  Fatigue  Research 
Board  have  a  special  significance  in  their  application 
to  women  in  industry. 

Another  gain  from  War  experiences  peculiarly 
affecting  women — although  it  has  also  a  much 
wider  bearing — is  the  very  considerable  testing 
of  the  practical  value  of  well-designed  appliances, 
adapted  machinery  and  lifting  tackle,  for  saving 
human  labour,  quite  apart  from  its  power  to  lessen 
cost  of  production.  The  aim  of  lessening  human 
toil  for  its  own  sake,  not  merely  for  commercial 
reasons,  has  a  new  interest. 

Before  the  War  there  was  for  women  and  girls 
in  industry,  outside  one  or  two  ancient  skilled 
occupations  (such  as  weaving,  high-class  dress- 
making), so  little  arrangement  for  training  that  it 
was  negligible.  During  the  War,  by  special  organi- 
sation of  training  for  women  substitutes  and  dilutees 
in  technical  schools  and  colleges  and  in  instructional 
factories,  women's  technical  and  personal  capacity 
was  publicly  measured.  And  for  the  first  time 
national  resources  were  applied,  under  the  kind  of 
direction  that  suited  women,  to  adaptation  of  the 
means  of  technical  training  in  process  work  to  the 
results  best  obtainable  from  them.  At  last,  there 
was  a  demonstration  on  a  scale  sufficiently  large  to 
make  the  truth  incontrovertible,  that  women  workers 
are  not  necessarily  the  less  valuable  for  production 


A  NEW  OUTLOOK  249 

to  meet  the  nation's  daily  need  because  their  pace 
and  natural  ways  of  working  differ  from  those 
suited  to  men. 

And  with  all  these  new  lights  came  also  the 
political  enfranchisement  of  women,  which  enables 
them  to  survey  with  new  eyes  the  too  passive  and 
subordinate  position  that  they  have  in  the  main 
hitherto  held  in  industry.  Though  from  time  to 
time  a  set-back  may  occur,  they  are  surely  summoned 
to  take  their  full  share  in  the  building  up  of  a  better 
industrial  life  for  the  people — as  fellow-producers 
with  men,  but  with  their  "  other  "  point  of  view  as 
guardians  of  the  home. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FACTORY  WELFARE  AND  ITS  RECOGNITION  BY  PARLIA- 
MENT ;  WORKS'  COMMITTEES  AND  WELFARE 
MANAGEMENT 

"  The  sweat  of  industry  would  dry  and  dye  but  for  the 
end  it  workes  too." 

"  The  sweat  of  industry  !"  It  was  in  a  factory 
where  excessively  hot,  heavy,  and  humid  work,  in 
which  women  bore  their  share,  was  carried  on  that  a 
foreman  once  said  to  a  Woman  Factory  Inspector: 
"  We  are  told  that  man  should  earn  his  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow,  but  here  we  earn  it  in  the  sweat  of 
the  whole  body."  The  saying  implied  a  sense  of 
the  need  of  a  new  standard  of  control.  It  is  with 
a  new  social  way  of  control  that  this  final  chapter  is 
concerned,  and  we  were  only  at  the  beginning  of 
seeing  what  it  might  achieve  when  the  period 
covered  by  this  book  closes. 

Labour  of  a  sustained  kind,  bodily  or  mental,  is, 
as  it  always  has  been,  the  lot  of  the  greater  part  of 
civilised  mankind,  and  on  the  wealth  it  produces 
depends  the  possibility  of  any  means  of  ordinary 
welfare  for  the  community.  Since  the  dawn  of 
history  energy,  and  the  sustained  capacity  for  the 
essentially  human  function  of  work,*  have  been  the 
test  of  racial  quality,  and  the  power  of  a  people  to 

*  The  word  "  work  "  appears  to  be  the  root  in  the 
diverse  words  "  energy,"  "  liturgy." 

250 


SOCIAL  FUNCTION  OF  HUMAN  LABOUR   251 

survive  and  develop  has  depended  on  power  in  some 
measure  to  socialise  the  use  of  that  function.  And 
yet,  until  the  idea  lately  arose  of  analysing  the 
psychological  and  physiological  capacity  of  the 
human  agent  in  industry,  and  of  studying  the 
rhythm  of  fatigue  and  rest,  custom  and  instinct 
were  the  main,  and  sometimes  the  only,  safeguards 
of  the  natural  pleasure  of  exercising  this  function. 
Among  the  great  majority  of  consumers  of  articles 
produced  by  the  factory  system  there  was,  even 
more  fixedly  than  among  employers,  a  blind  accep- 
tance of  the  fact  that : 

"...  for  them  many  a  weary  hand  did  swelt, 
In  torched  mines  and  noisy  factories.  ..." 

They  had  little  means  of  knowing  definitely,  however, 
what  it  all  involved,  and  it  was  a  great  encourage- 
ment to  the  Inspectors  to  see,  as  the  facts  came 
out  gradually,  through  the  publication  of  Annual 
Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector  and  of  police  court 
proceedings,  the  growth  of  various  societies  for  the 
help  of  the  workers. 

The  overstrain,  the  overloading,  and  occasionally 
the  misuse  of  the  delicate  human  motor  that  has 
persistently  characterised  much  of  our  factory 
production  even  by  young  workers,  can,  in  some 
measure,  be  gathered  from  facts  touched  on  in 
Chapter  IV.  The  frequent  lack  of  simple  conditions 
and  appliances  conducive  to  energy  and  preventive 
of  unnecessary  onset  of  fatigue  has  been  seen  in 
Chapter  II.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all,  the  marvellous 
capacity  for  much  contentment,  sometimes  even  joy, 
in  work  never  perished.     "Weaving  is  a  wonderful 


252  FACTORY  WELFARE 

art,  you  are  never  done  learning,"  was  a  saying, 
expressing  the  enlightening  power  of  thought,  by  a 
Yorkshire  textile  trade  unionist,  but  the  pride  with 
winch  a  woman  weaver  will  inform  you  that  she  has 
been  reckoned  "  a  champion  weaver  "  tells  the  same 
tale  of  the  power  that  the  exercise  of  skill  in  the  old 
trades  had  over  workers'  minds  (and  thus  over  their 
bodies).  And  the  spirit  appears  in  far  humbler 
workers,  sometimes  on  apparently  monotonous 
work;  even  more  strikingly  did  it  appear  in  the  new 
processes  opened  up  for  women  in  the  War. 

That  "  created  man  is  made  to  create,  from  the 
poet  to  the  potter  "*  is  an  idea  that  in  some  degree, 
however  inadequately,  has  always  been  implicitly 
accepted  for  men  with  their  special  aptitudes  in 
exercise  of  energy.  As  for  women  with  their  dual 
service  in  social  life,  in  the  home  as  well  as  in  pro- 
ductive work,  realisation  of  the  essential  part  that 
they  played  in  industry  was  slow  in  coming,  even 
after  the  development  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  of  textile  industries  on  a  great 
scale  by  aid  of  women  and  children.  It  needed  the 
second  great  "  industrial  revolution,"  referred  to  in 
the  last  chapter,  to  make  it  plain  to  the  whole 
community  that  a  great  deal  of  women's  pre- War 
industrial  work  was  either  more  skilled  or  heavier 
than  had  yet  been  generally  admitted,  and  that, 
whether  skilled  or  heavy,  it  was  indispensable  to 
the  success  and  welfare  of  the  trades  into  which  it 
entered.  During  that  testing  time  the  share  that 
women  workers  held  in  the  racial  reserve  endow- 

*  See  the  Sayings  of  the  Vicar  of  Morwenstowe  ia  the 
first  number  of  the  Beacon. 


A  SECOND  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION    253 

merits  of  endurance,  adaptability,  and  capacity  for 
labour  also  came  out  clearly. 

While  it  was  the  unprecedented  part  played  by 
massed  factory  production  in  the  Great  War  that 
brought  the  essentially  social  service  rendered  by 
industrial  labour  into  public  recognition,  it  was  the 
prominence  of  women's  share  in  it  that  finally  made 
legal  provision  for  "  welfare  "  possible. 

The  injurious  manner  and  extent  of  employment 
of  children  in  the  beginning  of  the  factory  system 
had,  as  we  have  seen,*  first  made  possible  any 
effective  Parliamentary  intervention  to  secure  ele- 
mentary conditions  of  health  and  safety  in  factories 
and  workshops.  The  experience  and  its  lessons 
were  not  forgotten,  and  it  was  almost  common 
ground  between  employers  and  the  State  in  1916 
that  rapidly  extended  employment  of  women  and 
girls  must  be  accompanied  with  measures  for  their 
welfare  and  safety  to  prevent  injurious  consequences 
for  society. 

Voluntary  welfare,  with  here  and  there  a  little 
co-operation  from  science,  had  grown  up  into  a 
conscious  "  movement  "  in  industrial  life  in  our 
country  during  the  twenty  years  preceding  the 
War.  In  its  principles  it  differed  little  from  those 
of  which  Robert  Owen  reminded  his  fellow- manu- 
facturers in  1813  when  he  showed  them  that,  just 
as  power-driven  machinery  was  improved  by  being 
carefully  tended,  kept  clean,  and  well  lubricated, 
so  the  far  more  delicate  living  human  motor  could 
be  benefited  if  carefully  studied  and  well  cared  for. 
Yet  the  only  possible  basis  on  which  the  niove- 
*  See  Chapter  IV.,  p.  94. 


254  FACTORY  WELFARE 

ment  could  grow  vigorously  in  such  a  factory 
system  as  that  of  the  nineteenth  centur}'  was  first 
laid  when  State  administration  began  effectually  to 
enforce  on  all  employers  alike  national  standards 
in  hours,  health,  safety,  defence  against  industrial 
diseases,  and  finally  against  sweated  wages. 

Those  reformers  and  administrators  who  wrought 
ceaselessly  between  1892  and  1914  to  give  effect  to 
new  safeguards  of  health  in  the  factory  surroundings 
of  the  worker  were  laying  foundations,  better  than 
they  knew,  for  social  aims  in  factory  administration. 
The  Women  Inspectors,  indeed,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  persistently  invited  employers  to  pass  on  from 
hygiene  in  the  factory  to  better  care  of  the  welfare 
of  the  workers,  but  they  never  doubted  that  com- 
pletion of  the  former  was  the  indispensable  ground- 
work of  voluntary  welfare. 

A  new  stage  and  a  new  opportunity  for  the  factory 
system  in  Great  Britain  began  when,  in  1916, 
Parliament  first  made  provision  for  "  securing  the 
welfare  of  the  workers,"*  and  when  (almost  at  the 
same  moment)  statesmen  and  administrators  called 
for  the  aid,  in  many  ways,  of  joint  industrial  councils 
of  employers  and  workers  who  could  follow  up 
welfare  provisions  and  help  to  make  them  corre- 
spond to  the  needs  of  the  workers.  The  legal  pro- 
vision by  itself  could  carry  "  welfare  "  only  a  little 
way:  development  of  the  means  of  co-operation 
between  workers  and  employers,  and  between  both 
of  them  and  the  Factory  Inspectors  and  scientific 
investigators,  was  an  indispensable  adjunct  in  this 

*  Police  Factories,  etc.,  (Miscellaneous  Provisions)  Act, 
191G,  sect.  7  (1). 


VOLUNTARY  AND  LEGAL  WELFARE     255 

new  enterprise.  The  very  unrest  and  suspicion 
that  met  some  of  the  first  systematic  attempts  of 
managers  at  welfare  supervision,  in  controlled 
munition  factories  lacking  representative  works' 
committees,  made  that  plain. 

The  legal  provisions  in  the  Act  of  1916  were 
framed,  of  course,  for  the  welfare  of  both  men  and 
women  workers,  but  it  was  the  large-scale  introduc- 
tion of  women  substitutes  and  dilutees  into  men's 
trades,  and  their  migration  by  tens  of  thousands 
to  centres  of  munitions  production,  that,  in  fact, 
had  made  the  starting-point  for  the  new  socialising 
measure.  And  so,  at  last,  in  factory  production 
we  had  come  full  circle,  and  ' '  the  guiding  ideas  of 
women  in  regard  to  conditions  essential  for  a  good 
industrial  life  of  both  men  and  women  "  could 
begin  to  influence  industrial  life,  openly  and  un- 
officially, as  well  as  through  Inspectors  and  a  few 
enlightened  employers.  Scientific  aid  from  many 
investigators  could  also  be  brought  to  bear  effectively 
on  the  task  of  civilising  working  conditions  when  a  true 
social  structure  in  factory  production  had  once  begun. 

In  England,  work  of  a  scientific  kind  for  the  reform 
of  the  factory  system  had  been  hitherto  occupied 
chiefly  in  the  directions  shown  in  the  chapter  on 
dangerous  processes.  From  the  Continent  of 
Europe*  came  the  earliest  direct  researches  of 
physiologists  and  psychologists  into  causes  and 
prevention  of  industrial  fatigue  and  into  the  possi- 

*  From  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  and  Germany;  see 
Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1903.  In  1913  the 
Home  Office  appointed  Professor  Stanley  Kent  to  make 
physiological  investigation  into  fatigue  in  industry. 


256  FACTORY  WELFARE 

bilities  of  vocational  selection  of  workers;  while 
from  America  came  "  motion  study  "  and  the  work 
of  the  efficiency  expert.  True  to  the  humanitarian 
bent  as  a  whole  of  her  factory  legislation,  it  was 
Great  Britain  that  first  planned  a  statutory  basis 
for  promoting  the  welfare  of  industrial  workers. 
It  is  open  to  one  to  wonder  whether  this  factor  was 
not  decisive  in  leading  to  the  great  place  given  in  the 
Peace  Treaty  to  constructive  work  by  the  League 
of  Nations  for  the  social  welfare  of  labour. 

Before  attempting  to  sketch  the  legal  and  adminis- 
trative position  in  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  the 
factory  worker  in  Great  Britain  between  1916  and 
1921,  the  completing  of  the  outline  of  the  story  told 
in  this  book  requires  a  backward  glance  at  some  of 
the  experiences  of  the  Inspectors  while  voluntary 
welfare  grew  up.  Without  the  pioneer  work  of 
employers  by  works'  welfare  committees  and  other 
agencies  encouraged  by  the  sympathy  and  advice 
of  the  Inspectors,  and  without  the  long  succession 
of  Inspectors'  Reports  recording  that  work,  the 
legislative  step  would  have  been  difficult  if  not 
impracticable. 

We  can  neither  here  treat  the  subject  of  factory 
welfare  systematically,  nor  attempt  to  cover  ground 
now  being  gradually  covered  by  textbooks  and 
pamphlets.  We  are  concerned  simply  with  the 
voluntary  growth  of  attention  to  the  matter  before 
1916  in  an  economic  system  that  was  built  up  on 
a  theory  adverse  to  its  implications,  and  with  the 
immediate  outcome  of  the  new  legal  experiment.* 

*  For  textbooks  and  pamphlets  it  may  suffice  to  refer 
readers  to  the  "  Health  of  the  Munition  Worker,"  a  hand- 


PIONEER  WORK  OF  EMPLOYERS      257 

When  the  great  pressure  came  for  munitions  and  all 
the  indispensable  commodities  in  the  field  of  war,  the 
voluntary  movement  had  gained  so  much  experience 
that  it  was  possible  to  make  strikingly  rapid  appli- 
cation of  measures  and  means  for  canteens,  first- 
aid  and  ambulance  work,  cloakrooms  and  washing 
conveniences,  suitable  protective  clothing  for  very 
varied  processes,  rest-rooms,  recreation  for  the  large 
new  aggregations  of  workers  in  crowded  centres, 
some  trained  welfare  supervision — in  fact,  for  all 
the  specific  subjects  that  were  included  in  Section  7 
of  the  Act  of  1916  as  prima,  facie  necessary  to 
the  health  and  welfare  of  the  workers.  Selection 
of  workers  for  particular  types  of  operations  and 
some  increased  care  for  prevention  of  unnecessary 
fatigue  naturally  followed.  The  scattered  efforts 
and  examples,  all  over  the  country  and  in  every 
kind  of  industry,  were  rapidly  wrought  up  into  an 
officially  guided  movement  by  the  combined  efforts 
of  Departments  concerned,  under  the  Home  Office, 
the  Ministry  of  Munitions,  the  Ministry  of  Labour, 
and  last,  but  not  least,  by  the  Canteen  Committee 
of  the  Board  of  Control  (Liquor  Traffic),  and  by 
the  non-executive  Committee  above-mentioned,  the 
Health  of  Munitions  Workers  Committee,  with  all 
its  important  published  memoranda. 

Before  all  else  in  the  welfare  movement  it  was 
the  work  for  canteens,  for  access  by  the  hard-pressed 
munition  workers  to  something  like  adequate  food 
decently  cooked  and  conveniently  served,  that  was 

book  prepared  by  the  Health  of  Munition  Workers  Com- 
mittee, published  in  1917,  and  to  the  "  Welfare  "  pamphlet 
series  issued  by  the  Home  Office,  1917-21. 


258  FACTORY  WELFARE 

the  decisive  factor  in  enabling  them  to  sustain 
their  intense  fatigue.  The  great  need  in  many 
places  for  tolerable  means  of  preparing  and  taking 
food  at  or  near  the  works  had  been  the  earliest  and 
most  strongly  expressed  of  all  the  demands  of  the 
woman  worker  for  elementary  means  of  welfare. 
For  years  the  most  frequent  of  the  complaints  I 
had  to  classify  in  my  annual  reports  as  "  outside 
the  Acts  "  was  that  messrooms  (or  food  and  drinking 
water)  were  not  accessible  or  not  well  maintained; 
and  many  workers  found  it  hard  to  understand  or 
believe  that  the  law  did  not  intervene  in  this  matter 
except  where  dangerous  processes  came  under 
special  regulations  or  where  poisonous  materials 
were  handled. 

The  success  of  the  movement  for  canteens  in  those 
years  of  war  strain  has  effected  a  completely  changed 
outlook  on  the  question  in  the  factories  themselves, 
that  makes  the  past  conditions  remembered  by 
the  Factory  Inspectors — especially  between  the 
years  from  1893  to  1903 — seem  now  wellnigh 
incredible.  For  no  workers  was  this  change  more 
greatly  needed  than  for  the  poorly  fed  women  and 
girl  workers.  The  first  time,  however,  that  I 
specifically  used  the  word  "  welfare  "  in  an  annual 
report  in  connection  with  lack  of  means  for  the 
personal  well-being  of  the  workers  was,  not  as 
regards  either  food  or  rest,  but  as  regards  the 
incomprehensible  general  failure  to  supply  means 
of  maintaining  personal  cleanliness,  which  came 
especially  to  the  front  in  1899  in  the  early  pressure 
of  preparing  soldiers'  rations  in  another  war.  The 
failure  to  include  the  matter  in  the  English  Factory 


WOMEN'S  OWN  CLAIMS  259 

Acts  was  the  more  difficult  to  understand  when  one 
saw  how  carefully  access  to  washing  conveniences 
was  provided  for  in  French  and  German  codes. 
"Employers,"  I  said,  "who  have  sufficient  .  .  . 
interest  in  such  matters  to  make  the  experiment, 
quickly  find  their  profit  in  provision  for  the  welfare 
of  their  work-women,  in  particular  those  which 
tend  to  raise  the  whole  standard  of  self-respect 
among  them."  And  again:  "  The  need  for  washing 
appliances,  increasingly  felt  among  the  women  and 
girls,  has  a  moral  and  social  value  as  well  as  a  strictly 
hygienic  aspect.  It  is  a  matter  for  surprise  how 
frequently  the  effort  is  made  in  the  most  unlikely 
and  difficult  circumstances  by  working  women  to 
turn  homeward  with  a  neat  and  cleanly  appearance."* 
On  the  moral  and  social  side,  the  right  and  claim 
of  the  woman  worker  to  have  her  conditions  of 
work  supervised  by  competent  women  appeared 
to  the  Woman  Inspector,  from  the  outset,  the  only 
effective  remedy  for  many  kinds  of  complaints  that, 
like  the  lack  of  canteens,  were  "  outside  the  Acts." 
And  trained  women's  superintendence  was  also 
conceded  during  the  Great  War,  not  only  in  the 
controlled  and  national  factories,  but  in  the  fac- 
tories where  the  Home  Office  granted  exceptional 
hours  under  an  Emergency  Order  or  urged  the  sub- 
stitution of  women  to  secure  the  release  of  men. 
It  was  contended  by  a  workers'  delegate,  in  1917, 
at  an  inter-city  conference  in  Sheffield  of  local 
advisory  committees,  that  "  welfare  "  is  an  ethical 
and  spiritual  matter  more  than  it  is  a  material  one; 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1899,  p.  258,  and 
for  1904,  p.  243. 

18 


260  FACTORY  WELFARE 

she  was  sure  that  working  women  would  always 
press  for  the  former  elements.  However  strongly 
one  sees  that  both  material  and  spiritual  or  ethical 
elements  are  inherent  in  the  very  meaning  of 
"  welfare,"*  one  must  pay  tribute  to  the  prominence 
of  the  latter  element  in  the  complaints  from  factory 
womanhood. 

In  1900  I  was  able  to  quote,  from  the  Inspectors, 
testimony  to  the  growth  of  instances  of  welfare 
supervision  in  factories,  where  women  of  intelli- 
gence, refinement,  and  kindliness  are  placed  as 
superintendents  or  forewomen  and  exercise  a  won- 
derful influence  for  good  over  the  workers  whom 
they  control. f  At  the  same  time  instances  were 
shown  of  very  great  need  for  such  control,  and  in 
various  subsequent  years  it  appeared  that  it  was 
frequently  from  such  places  that  serious  complaints 
came.  In  great  food-producing,  sugar,  confec- 
tionery, and  other  factories,  the  names  of  manu- 
facturers of  world-fame  are  well  known  as  pioneers 
in  this  movement,  but  in  the  older  and  greater 
textile  industries  employers  were  slower  in  taking 
a  definite  share  in  it.  When,  in  1907,  some  striking 
examples  were  given  of  introduction  into  large 
textile  mills  of  trained  women  superintendents 
(the  first  note  of  a  professional  stamp  in  such 
appointments),  the  aim  was  specifically  given  as 
"  an  experiment  ...  to  bring  about  a  higher 
standard  of  civilisation."  The  manager  explained 
that  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  "  a  woman's  in- 

*  As  may  be  seen  in  the   literary  use  of  the  word  by 
Chaucer  and  in  the  Authorized  Version. 

|  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1900,  p.  356. 


TRAINED  SUPERVISION  261 

fluence  was  needed  in  his  mill  and  that  he  proposed 
to  appoint  a  woman  whose  duty  it  would  be  to 
supervise  health  conditions  .  .  .  ventilation,  tem- 
perature, humidity,  cleanliness,  the  registration  of 
all  Home  Office  requirements,  the  passing  of  the 
children  by  the  certifying  surgeon,  the  supervision 
of  dining-room  and  catering  arrangements,  and 
occasional  visiting  of  cases  of  distress."  A  doctor 
was  also  appointed,  arrangements  were  made  for 
special  access  of  the  children  to  public  baths,  for 
good  meals  for  the  half-timers;  and  various  other 
amenities  followed.*  It  was  frequently  the  motive 
of  improving  the  standard  of  health  that  caused 
thoughtful  employers  to  embark  on  these  schemes, 
and  always  in  such  cases  efforts  were  made  to 
provide  access  to  wholesome  food  at  prices  within 
the  reach  of  the  workers.  The  other  side  of  the 
picture  may  be  seen  in  the  following  words  from 
Miss  Whitworth  in  the  same  year: 

"  Young  girls  of  fourteen  frequently  go  to  work 
with  only  three-halfpence  or  twopence  with  which 
to  provide  their  dinner  in  Poplar  and  Hackney; 
this  kind  of  worker  is  greatly  in  need  of  some  place 
like  the  '  Welcome  Institute  '  (Isle  of  Dogs),  where 
she  can  get  a  proper  meal  for  that  price.  Although 
some  employers  have  dining-rooms  provided  with 
ovens  and  women  employed  to  cater  for  the  workers, 
there  are  places  where  the  girls  have  not  even  seats 
that  they  can  use  in  the  meal-time,  and  they  take 
their  food  sitting  on  the  floor,  in  paper-sorting 
works,  in  laundries,  in  rope  works,  and  others; 
cloakrooms  are  almost  unknown.  One  finds  hats 
and    coats    bundled    together    in    passages,    under 

*  Ibid.,  1907,  p.  188. 


262  FACTORY  WELFARE 

tables,  and  along  the  walls  of  workrooms  and  any- 
where except  in  properly  warmed  cloakrooms. 
When  girls  come  a  long  way  to  work  they  do  need 
to  have  somewhere  to  dry  their  clothes  and  boots 
on  wet  mornings."* 

For  years,  and  perhaps  most  pressingly  from 
1906  to  1913,  the  Inspectors  had  emphasised  the 
importance  of  these  and  allied  matters,  and  the 
urgent  need  for  reform.  Their  communications, 
as  far  back  as  1902,  aroused  outside  sympathies  as 
well  as  the  attention  of  employers:  the  Christian 
Social  Union  Research  Committee  made  independent 
enquiry  into  it,  and  this  stimulated  among  various 
social  workers  a  movement  for  opening  simple 
dining-rooms  in  localities  where  there  were  many 
workgirls  employed  in  factories  or  workshops  far 
from  their  homes,  and  in  these  some  of  the  help  and 
comfort  of  a  club  was  provided.  The  evils  of  lack 
of  any  care,  supervision,  or  comfort  at  mealtime 
pauses  was  strikingly  obvious  where  workers  were 
legally  bound  to  be  excluded  from  workrooms 
during  mealtimes  because  of  the  presence  of  dust, 
acid,  or  other  matter  in  the  manufacture,  making 
the  place  unsuited  for  the  consumption  of  food. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  quote  from  records  of 
our  earlier  work  in  this  connection.  The  evil  was 
sufficiently  brought  out  through  the  enquiry  in 
1911  (already  referred  to)  by  Miss  Whitlock,  M.B., 
into  dusty  processes  in  the  Midlands.     She  said  then : 

"  Absence  of  a  messroom  or  of  proper  washing 
accommodation  was  the  rule  in  the  Sheffield  buffing 
shops,  and  quite  common  in  the  Birmingham  ones. 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1907,  p.  161. 


NEED  OF  GOOD  DINING-ROOMS       263 

The  rule  forbidding  the  taking  of  meals  in  these 
shops  was  absolutely  neglected,  and  the  conditions 
under  which  the  women  ate  their  meals  were  some- 
times appalling.  In  combined  asbestos  and  rubber 
works,  where  the  dust  of  some  rooms  and  the 
naphtha  fumes  in  others  might  certainly  suggest 
the  desirability  of  a  messroom,  this  was  not  infre- 
quentty  wanting.  It  is,  of  course,  quite  common 
to  find  wet  spinning  rooms  with  numbers  of  workers 
sitting  on  cloths  on  the  wet  floor  to  take  their 
dinner — and  upturned  tins  in  carding  rooms — because 
seats  or  tables  for  the  occasion,  even  where  a  mess- 
room  is  provided,  cleanliness,  proper  heating,  and 
a  cheerful  appearance,  are  by  no  means  common. 
At  one  factory  the  messroom  was  known  amongst 
the  girls  as  the  '  dead  house,'  and  certainly  the 
resemblance  to  a  mortuary  was  not  imaginary. 
At  another  I  found  shortly  before  the  dinner  a 
temperature  of  40°  F.,  and  was  informed  that  the 
heating  apparatus  had  been  out  of  order  for  some 
time."* 

The  formation  of  two  dinner  clubs  by  an  associa- 
tion of  factory  girls  in  Sheffield  followed  on  the 
Inspector's  systematic  instructions  to  occupiers 
that  the  section  enjoining  exclusion  from  dusty 
workrooms  during  mealtimes  must  be  obeyed. 
Similar  results  followed  the  same  kind  of  concen- 
trated work  in  other  towns.  Employers  gave  some 
help  to  the  movement,  and  it  developed  into  greater 
local  activity  during  the  great  production  of  muni- 
tions. 

Many  interesting  examples  reported  in  the  years 
1908  to  1912,  both  of  good  and  careful  provision, 
and  its  total  absence,  drove  home  the  importance 

*  Ibid.,  1911,  pp.  138-9. 


264  FACTORY  WELFARE 

of  direct  endeavour  by  manufacturers  to  promote 
conditions  of  ordinary  human  welfare  in  their 
factories  for  the  workers  who  spend  so  many  hours 
in  them.  One  Inspector  would  comment  on  the 
"  pathetic  gratitude  "  of  rag- sorters  for  a  decent 
mealroom  in  districts  where  any  provision  at  all 
was  rare: 

"  The  subject  is  one  of  the  utmost  importance 
for  workers,  who  often  leave  home  at  5.30  a.m.,  or 
earlier,  and  have  nearly  an  hour's  walk.  They  have 
to  take  their  food  with  them,  and  the  only  means  of 
warming  it  is  the  steam -heated  sink  in  the  yard.  .  .  . 
I  counted  nine  confectioners'  and  fried-fish  shops 
in  three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  a  main  road  all  be- 
sieged by  workers  during  the  dinner  hour." 

Another  Inspector  would  urge  that  nothing  could 
exceed  the  discomfort  in  which  meals  were  often 
taken,  the  food  on  the  edge  of  a  workbench  covered 
with  work  that  must  not  suffer  from  contact;  the 
worker  seated  on  the  most  unrestful  kind  of  stool.* 
In  1909  and  1910  Miss  Escreet  repeated  the  special 
requests  of  cardboard- box  makers  for  seats  to 
obviate  (as  they  said)  the  necessity  for  sitting  either 
on  the  table  or  the  floor  at  mealtimes — their  work 
being  mostly  done  standing,  and  messrooms  and 
cloakrooms  being  then  almost  unknown  luxuries 
in  that  industry.  "  In  the  large  places  gas-cooking 
stoves  are  provided  and  a  woman  is  kept  who  serves 
the  workers  in  various  ways,  warming  their  meals, 
heating  their  glue,  etc.,  but  for  these  benefits  the 
workers  generally  pay  at  least  in  part." 

Just  as  the  question  of  proper  canteens  and  mess- 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1908,  p.  134. 


PROTECTIVE  CLOTHING,  SEATS,  ETC    265 

room  arrangements  was  bound  up  with  organisation 
and  good  welfare  superintendence,  so  also  did  other 
items  appear  to  be  associated  with  it  in  the  Inspec- 
tor's reports — e.g.,  suitable  protective  clothing  for 
those  engaged  in  dusty  or  dirty  processes,  in  ex- 
cessively wet  or  excessively  hot  processes,  in  use  of 
acid  or  caustic  liquids,  or  in  working  about  dan- 
gerous machines.  Cloakroom  arrangements  and 
their  care  were  specially  closely  bound  up  with  the 
possibility  of  securing  responsible  supervision — ■ 
and  for  years  in  many  places  the  difficulty  of 
getting  any  adequate  attention  to  seating  arrange- 
ments proved  on  the  whole  one  of  the  most  intract- 
able problems  that  the  Inspector  had  to  deal  with, 
so  long  as  seats  remained  a  matter  "  outside  the 
Acts."  Complaints  continued  year  after  year  of 
the  strain  of  standing  occupations,  of  disciplinary 
refusal  by  foremen  to  allow  workers  to  sit  down 
at  all  during  spells  of  work,  of  vibration  jarring 
the  nervous  system  through  ordinary  chairs  or 
while  standing.  Seats  remained  in  this  category 
down  to  1916,  and  great  must  have  been  the  loss  to 
industry  as  well  as  to  individual  workers  through 
the  long  years  when  conservation  of  strength  by 
reasonably  good  seating  arrangements  was  widely 
neglected  and  sometimes  ignorantly  opposed  by 
managers. 

In  1907,  for  example,  repeated  complaints  were 
received  of  lack  of  seats,  and  some  could  not  be 
remedied  through  unwillingness  of  employers  to 
accept  advice  on  the  subject.  In  a  factory  where 
in  the  previous  year  the  injury  to  health  to  girls 
had  been  shown  and  advice  tendered,  it  was  found 


266  FACTORY  WELFARE 

in  1907  that  stools  had  been  provided  for  only  thirty- 
seven  out  of  three  hundred  little  girls,  most  of  them 
being  between  thirteen  and  fifteen  years  of  age. 

"Many  looked  delicate  and  weary,  and  said 
they  got  very  tired  before  the  end  of  the  morning 
and  afternoon  spells  of  work,  standing  as  they  did 
for  five  hours  at  a  time  .  .  .  some  seemed  to  be 
suffering  from  swollen  legs  and  feet  or  from  debility. 
.  .  .  Reference  was  made  to  the  certifying  surgeon, 
who  suspended  one  from  employment  and  urged 
the  employer  to  provide  seats  for  the  others.  After 
much  persuasion  the  employer  undertook  to  increase 
the  seating  accommodation,  yet  when  the  surgeon 
attempted  to  qualify  his  certificate  with  the  proviso 
that  the  girl  must  be  provided  with  a  seat  this 
employer  said  that  any  girl  whose  certificate  was 
so  qualified  should  be  discharged."  In  such  ways 
did  the  need  for  simple  direct  regulation  of  these 
matters  become  abundantly  evident.  In  a  spinning 
factory  where  seats  had  been  provided  for  the  pre- 
parers, one  woman  told  the  Inspector  that  she  had 
left  a  factory  where  she  was  earning  sixpence  a 
week  more  in  order  to  work  at  this  factory  where 
she  would  have  a  seat,  and  "  now  she  was  ready 
for  another  day's  work  every  evening."* 

"  The  custom  of  employing  half-time  children 
on  their  feet  '  buttoning '  at  shirt  factories  in  Lan- 
cashire, on  the  alternate  day  system,  so  that  they 
stood  for  ten  hours  on  the  alternate  days,  was  found 
by  the  Women  Inspectors  to  be  most  unsatisfactory. 
In  a  few  factories  seats  were  provided  at  their 
request  by  the  occupiers,  but  in  some  places  per- 
*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1907,  p.  173. 


FATIGUE  PREVENTION  267 

suasion  failed:  the  children  worked  rapidly,  and  it 
was  said  they  could  not  get  through  the  same 
amount  if  they  sat  at  tables."* 

One  felt  how  closely  all  this  was  allied  to  the  over- 
strain touched  on  above  in  Chapter  IV.  in  weight 
lifting  and  carrying,  and  through  overpressure  in 
various  ways.  In  its  many  manifestations  over- 
strain of  young  workers  seemed  elusive  of  direct 
prohibition,  and  more  amenable  to  control  by  well- 
developed  welfare  superintendence  in  touch  with 
a  department  thoroughly  versed  in  prevention  of 
industrial  fatigue.  Constructive  work  starting  from 
a  rational  basis  apparently  becomes  inevitable  for 
administration  after  the  first  stage  of  prevention 
of  gross  abuse  has  been  passed. 

First  -  aid  and  ambulance  work  in  the  factory 
system  was  clearly  a  foremost  point  in  welfare  work, 
and  has  already  been  touched  on  in  the  chapter  on 
dangerous  processes  and  accidents.  Development 
of  Workmen's  Compensation  Acts  greatly  streng- 
thened the  argument  for  it  among  enlightened 
managers,  and  in  many  large  Midland  factories  a 
well-equipped  ambulance  room,  with  a  fully  trained 
nurse,  had  afforded  considerable  experience  before 
the  War  came,  bringing  new  developments  of  this 
safeguard  of  health  and  life  as  well  as  of  limbs. 
Even  in  1911  a  Factory  Inspector  wrote: 

"  On  visiting  a  large  factory  recently  I  was 
interested  to  find  a  rest  room  in  which  there  were 
four  couches.  Two  of  them  were  occupied  by  girls 
who  were  sleeping  soundly.  I  was  informed  that 
this  room  was  often  used  by  girls  not  feeling  well 

*  Ibid.,  1909,  p.  148. 


268  FACTORY  WELFARE 

or  tired,  and  that  the  renewed  vigour  with  which 
the  workers  returned  to  work  after  a  few  hours' 
rest  soon  made  up  for  the  loss  of  time."* 

In  1912  a  large  factory  in  Coventry,  where 
hundreds  of  young  girls  were  employed,  was  reported 
on  by  Miss  Whitlock.  A  nurse  was  employed  by 
the  firm  whose  sole  duty  was  to  look  after  the 
health  of  the  workers,  and  she  had  a  small  surgery 
at  which  she  attended  to  any  slight  injuries — of 
which  there  were  forty-nine  on  the  day  of  this 
inspection.  A  doctor  called  daily  and  could  be 
consulted  by  the  workers  without  charge.  Mess- 
rooms,  where  dinners  could  be  cheaply  obtained, 
and  an  open-air  swimming  bath  were  provided. 
In  a  large  surgical-dressings  factory  the  plan  was 
adopted  of  having  a  social  welfare  secretary  to  care 
for  the  health  and  welfare  of  the  two  to  three  hundred 
girls,  and  here  a  rest  room  was  part  of  the  equip- 
ment. The  cleanliness  of  the  workrooms  was  itself 
a  lesson  in  hygiene.  In  the  same  year  there  were 
again  examples  given  by  the  Women  Inspectors, 
showing  the  boundless  room  for  growth  of  general 
welfare  work  and  of  the  more  pressing  safeguard 
of  supervision  of  girls'  labour  by  trained  women 
superintendents.  In  a  large  printing  works  in  a 
small  provincial  town,  where  120  women  worked 
among  600  men,  an  Inspector  found  no  foreman  and 
no  women  in  charge.  There  had  been  a  complaint 
of  behaviour  to  the  Inspector,  and  she  found  the 
manager  anxious  about  the  tone  of  his  factory  and 

*  "  Hygiene  and  Industrial  Employment,"  by  Hilda 
Martindale.  Address  read  at  the  Congress  of  the  Royal 
Sanitary  Institute  in  Belfast,  January,  1911. 


WELFARE  SUPERVISORS  269 

ready  to  welcome  her  visit.    She  urged  the  appoint- 
ment of  women  overseers,  and  this  was  promised.* 

In  the  year  1909  a  step  of  some  consequence  to 
the  movement  was  taken  in  the  convening  at  Bourn- 
ville,  Birmingham,  by  Mr.  Cadbury,  of  the  first 
general  conference  of  social  secretaries,  welfare 
superintendents,  and  manageresses,  to  consider  the 
aims  and  results  of  their  work.f  At  this  conference 
some  very  practical  and  helpful  papers  were  read. 
By  invitation  I  spoke  on  the  basis  existing  in  the 
national  standards  laid  down  in  the  Factory  Acts, 
for  the  working  out  in  individual  factories  of  the 
personal  health  and  welfare  of  the  workers,  and  I 
asked  them  to  look  into  and  consider  fatigue  and 
its  prevention.  Discussion  arose  on  the  means, 
legal  and  voluntary,  for  improving  both  the  con- 
ditions in  factories  and  the  physical  and  industrial 
fitness  of  the  workers.  There  was  a  marked  gain 
in  such  meetings  and  discussions,  leading  as  they 
did  to  the  clearing  up  of  ideas,  that  at  that  stage 
were  bound  to  be  a  little  vague,  on  the  main  objects 
of  welfare  superintendence  and  their  relationship  to 
the  production  of  wealth.  The  majority  of  welfare 
supervisors  present  at  the  conference  in  1909  would 
have  been  surprised  if  they  could  have  heard  the 
high  estimate  of  their  calling  to  be  expressed  in  1918 
by  Professor  Urwick.  "This  is  a  skilled  job,"  he 
said,  "  so  skilled  that  it  is  beyond  the  scope  of  any- 
one who  has  not  made  a  careful  study  of  the  con- 
ditions of  it  ...  it  requires  essentially  detachment 
as  well  as  knowledge."     However  high  the  estimate 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1912,  pp.  150-1. 
t  Ibid.,  1909,  p.  122. 


270  FACTORY  WELFARE 

was  to  be,  there  was  certainly  room  throughout  for 
ancillary  welfare  workers  as  well,  and  these  early 
conferences  strengthened  the  professional  spirit  in 
the  calling.  Partly  from  them  and  also  from  the 
interest  shown  by  leading  employers  came  a  new 
movement  in  the  provincial  Universities — following 
an  older  one  within  the  London  University  * — to 
provide  some  training  for  such  social  workers  by 
hygiene  and  social  welfare  courses  and  diplomas. 
This  growth  led  again,  in  1917  and  also  in  1920, 
through  the  war  conditions  of  industry  to  confer- 
ences on  training,  officially  convened  at  the  Home 
Office,  between  representatives  of  Universities, 
employers,  leading  welfare  managers,  and  the 
Factory  Department. 

Perusal  of  the  pages,  concerned  with  the  increase 
of  welfare  work  in  the  experience  of  the  Women 
Inspectors  in  the  Annual  Report  for  1913,  j  published 
but  a  few  months  before  the  great  industrial  up- 
heaval of  the  War,  gives  a  strong  impression  of 
growth  in  the  employers'  interest  in  welfare,  and  of 
the  vitality  of  a  desire  among  an  increasing  number 
of  them  to  secure  for  employees  much  better  con- 
ditions of  work  than  can  be  laid  down  in  an  Act 
of  Parliament.  The  value  of  this  growth  lay  not 
only  in  the  details  of  work  done  by  the  social  secre- 
tary or  superintendent  in  organising  medical,  dental, 
or  nursing  facilities  for  care  of  the  health  of  the 
workers,  methods  of  cleansing  workrooms,  organis- 
ing   messing   arrangements,    bathing   and   washing 

*  At  Bedford  College  for  Womon  and  the  London  School 
of  Economies. 

f  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1913,  p.  100. 


FACTORY  WELFARE  IN   1913  271 

conveniences,  suitable  protective  clothing,  restful 
seating  arrangements.  Behind  and  above  it  all  was 
the  possibility  of  making  the  "  social  helper  most 
important  to  the  workers  and  a  real  help  to  the 
carrying  out  of  the  spirit  of  the  Factory  and  Work- 
shop Act.  An  Inspector  may  remind  an  occupier 
that  his  factory  must  be  kept  in  a  cleanly  state, 
but  unless  there  is  some  woman  permanently  on 
the  premises  who  will  organise  and  look  into  the 
details  of  the  cleansing,  and  suggest  contrivances 
for  the  purpose,  it  is  seldom  properly  done.  Four 
firms  visited  in  1913  had  arranged  classes  for  their 
work-people  and  .  .  .  for  technical  training  .  .  . 
most  social  workers  had  the  initiation  of  social  clubs 
in  their  charge  .  .  .  clubs  for  sports  as  well  as 
gardening."* 

In  1914  we  passed  from  peaceful  promotion  of 
welfare  to  warfare,  and  a  new  note  had  to  be  struck 
immediately.  "How  greatly,"  said  Miss  Squire, 
''  the  army  of  industrial  workers  need  a  commis- 
sariat department  to  cater  for  them  during  their 
days  of  active  service  will  perhaps  be  better  realised 
now  that  the  public  attention  has  been  ravetted  on 
the  victualling  of  our  soldiers  in  camp  and  on  the 
front.  If  '  an  army  fights  on  its  stomach  '  is  it 
not  also  true  that  a  factory  works  on  it  ?"  The 
answer  came  promptly  to  this  and  to  similar  ques- 
tions that  had  long  been  asked,  apparently  vainly, 
by  the  Inspectors  about  the  needs  of  industrial 
workers.  In  an  East  End  social  restaurant,  where 
the  midday  meal  was  served  daily  to  a  hundred 
workers  from  a  neighbouring  factory,  the  superin- 

*  Ibid.,  1913,  p.  101. 


272  FACTORY  WELFARE 

tendent  and  her  helpers  had  for  years  deplored  the 
insufficiency  of  the  dinner  purchased  by  the  young 
girls  under  sixteen,  and  they  could  scarcely  refrain 
from  supplying  more  than  was  paid  for.  "  One 
day  soon  after  the  War  broke  out  there  was  such 
a  run  on  meat-and-vegetable  dinners  that  the  supply 
was  not  equal  to  the  demand  .  .  .  the  wages  had 
that  day  been  raised  voluntarily  by  the  occupier  to 
the  proposed  Trade  Board  rate;  the  effect  was 
immediate  and  continued  ...  a  striking  answer 
to  those  who  cling  to  the  theory  that  an  increase 
in  wages  is  of  no  substantial  value  to  a  girl."* 

By  the  close  of  1915  an  entirely  new  position  and 
outlook  had  been  opened  for  girls  and  women  in 
industry.  In  demand  for  their  labour,  in  wages, 
in  conditions,  and  in  the  possibilities  of  their  output, 
the  situation  had  led  to  a  "  systematic  introduction 
of  hygienic  safeguards  that  Factory  Inspectors 
had  advocated  for  many  years  .  .  .  supervision  of 
women  by  women,  provision  of  means  of  personal 
cleanliness,  proper  meal  and  rest  rooms  and  qualified 
nurses  "  in  the  factories.  There  was  a  "  new 
general  awakening  to  the  dependance  of  sufficient 
output  on  the  welfare  of  the  human  agent. "| 

This  awakening  was  strikingly  expressed  in  the 
formation  of  the  Welfare  Department  by  the 
Minister  of  Munitions,  for  promoting  the  means  of 
such  welfare  in  controlled  and  national  factories. 
This  department  had  as  its  first  Director  an  em- 
ployer experienced  in  the  successful  promotion  of 
industrial  welfare  experiments  in  his  own  factories, 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1914,  p.  52. 
f  Ibid.,  1915,  p.  15. 


STIMULUS  BY  PRODUCTION  FOR  WAR    273 

Mr.  Seebohm  Rowntree.  At  his  wish  I  supplied 
him  with  detailed  surveys  of  the  munition  factories, 
made  by  the  Women  Inspectors.  Before  the  end 
of  1916  he  was  supplied  with  1,396  surveys  relating 
to  the  welfare  conditions  of  nearly  200,000  women 
and  girls,  classified  according  to  the  degree  of  urgency 
for  his  attention:  31  per  cent,  of  the  factories 
were  in  the  first  and  best  class,  49  per  cent,  in  the 
second,  and  20  per  cent,  in  the  third  class.  In 
the  second  and  third  classes  were  placed  factories 
lacking  in  varying  degrees  and  combinations, 
means  for  preparing  and  taking  food,  cloakrooms 
and  washing  conveniences,  first-aid  or  rest  rooms, 
seats,  and  suitable  supervision.  One  must  re- 
member that  in  many  instances  the  workers  travelled 
daily  long  distances  with  only  defective  means  of 
transport,  and  most  were  working  twelve-hour 
(day  and  night)  shifts.  Great  progress  was  made 
during  the  year  in  so  transforming  the  conditions 
in  many  of  the  factories  as  to  qualify  them  for 
advance  to  a  higher  class.  A  great  stimulus  was 
given  to  supply  of  welfare  superintendents  by  the 
forming  of  a  panel  of  likely  persons  and  by  giving 
them  access  to  intensive  training.  While  mistakes 
were  unavoidably  made  in  the  rush  to  supply  the 
need,  employers  being  free  to  make  their  own 
choice,  a  remarkable  proportion  of  capable  and 
a  few  highly  distinguished  welfare  administrators 
were  put  up  by  the  movement.  Medical  women, 
moreover,  had,  and  made  good  use  of,  a  new  and 
important  channel  for  experience  as  medical  officers 
of  great  national  factories. 
The    supply    of    surveys    and    reports   from    the 


274  FACTORY  WELFARE 

Factory  Department  to  the  Welfare  Department, 
Ministry  of  Munitions,  continued,  while  co-operation 
with  dilution  officers  also  developed  until  well  on 
into  1917.  One  of  the  Medical  Inspectors  of  Fac- 
tories, Dr.  Collis,  then  succeeded  Mr.  Rowntree 
in  charge  of  the  Welfare  Department,  and  early  in 
1918  Miss  Squire,  Deputy  Principal  Lady  Inspector 
of  Factories,  passed  into  charge  of  the  Women's 
Welfare  in  that  Department.  Thus  a  kind  of  fusion 
of  the  emergency  wartime  department  with  the 
peacetime  department  for  industrial  welfare  pre- 
ceded the  end  of  the  War  and  the  rapid  closing 
of  the  munition  factories  that  followed.  The  making 
of  Welfare  Orders  by  the  Secretary  of  State  had, 
however,  begun  in  October,  1917,  under  the  powers 
given  by  the  Act  of  1916. 

In  "  The  School  Child  "  that  Act  was  pleasantly 
described  as  a"  little  Police  Act,"  by  which  "  the 
Home  Secretary  obtained  large  powers  to  compel 
the  provisions  of  many  measures  for  the  welfare  of 
the  workers  in  factories  and  workshops."  It  was 
there  also  truly  designated  as  "in  fact,  a  large 
extension  of  the  Factory  Acts,"  dependent  in  some 
degree  on  the  reception  given  to  it  by  the  workers. 
The  prompt  issue  of  a  summary  of  the  operative 
clause  of  the  Act,  in  "  School  Child  Leaflet  No.  14," 
is  one  of  the  many  straws  then  floating  about  that 
one  can  gather  up  now,  showing  that  a  new  wind 
of  the  spirit  was  blowing  in  the  industrial  affairs 
of  the  nation.  As  I  said,  however,  at  the  Birming- 
ham Congress  of  the  Royal  Sanitary  Institute  in 
1920: 


THE  LITTLE  POLICE  ACT,   1916        275 

"  Only  after  the  Great  War  was  it  generally 
realised  how  largely  the  personal  welfare  and  health 
of  manual  labourers  rest  on  their  own  co-operation 
in  .  .  .  demand  for,  and  use  of  all  the  new  means 
placed  by  development  of  science  and  advancing 
humanitarian  and  Christian  ideals  at  the  disposal 
of  industry,  and  how  important  it  is  to  have  trained 
technical  assistance  in  developing  the  full  use  of  all 
these  means  in  each  workplace." 

A  skilled  workman  in  a  large  factory,  president  of 
his  union  (a  craft  union),  and  taking  a  leading  part 
both  on  the  works'  committee  and  the  district 
committee  of  the  joint  industrial  council  of  his 
trade,  said  to  me  in  the  summer  of  1920  that  he 
believed  that  the  workers  had  it  in  their  power  (if 
they  could  only  see  it),  in  co-operation  with  the 
employers,  to  do  no  less  than  recreate  their  work 
and  surroundings. 

At  the  time  of  the  passing  of  the  "  little  Police 
Act,"*  in  1916,  there  was  some  apprehension 
amongst  the  few  workers'  leaders  who  took  any 
notice  of  it  that  it  might  mean  no  more  (at  the 
worst)  than  some  new  kind  of  efficiency  engineering 
or  possibly  (less  objectionably)  a  mere  revival 
of  philanthropy  by  employers.  Employers  them- 
selves appeared  to  be  too  busy  to  take  notice  of  the 
Act  before  it  was  passed,  and  it  quickly  and  quietly 
became  law,  the  only  amendments  being  such  as  to 
strengthen  the  provision  for  initiative  by  the  workers 
in  working  out  details. 

The  Act  provided  that,  "  where  it  appears  to  the 
Secretary  of  State  that  the  conditions  and  circum- 
stances of  employment  or  the  nature  of  the  pro- 

*   6  &  7  Geo.  V.,  c.  31,  a.d.  1016. 

1J 


276  FACTORY  WELFARE 

cesses  carried  on  in  any  factory  or  workshop  are 
such  as  to  require  special  provision  to  be  made  at 
the  factory  or  workshop  for  securing  the  welfare  of 
the  workers  or  any  class  of  workers  employed  therein 
in  relation  to  the  matters  to  which  this  section 
applies,  he  may  by  order  require  the  occupier  to 
make  such  reasonable  provision  therefor  as  may 
be  specified  in  the  order,  and  if  the  occupier  fails 
to  comply  with  the  requirements  of  the  order  or 
any  of  them,  the  factory  or  workshop  shall  be 
deemed  not  to  be  kept  in  conformity  with  the 
Factory  Act,  1901."  Meals,  drinking  water,  pro- 
tective clothing,  ambulance  and  first  aid,  seats, 
facilities  for  washing,  accommodation  for  clothing, 
and  supervision  were  the  subjects  particularly 
specified  as  covered  by  the  section,  but  power  was 
given  to  the  Secretary  of  State  to  extend  it  to  other 
matters,  and  rest  rooms  have  since  been  added.* 

"  Orders  may  be  made  for  a  particular  factory  or 
workshop,  or  for  factories  or  workshops  of  any  class 
or  group  or  description."  The  first  order,  dated 
October  5,  1917,  provided  for  simple  welfare  arrange- 
ments for  workers  in  tinplate  factories,  with  their 
rough  and  heavy  processes  in  which  women  have 
been  employed  for  many  years. f     The  second  order 

*  And  have  with  great  benefit  to  the  workers  been  made 
compulsory  in  the  fish-curing  industry  in  Yarmouth  and 
Lowestoft. 

t  The  provisions  were  for  suitable  protective  clothing, 
accommodation  for  clothing  of  women  and  girls  under 
charge  of  a  responsible  person,  a  suitable  messroom  separate 
from  the  cloakroom,  furnished  with  sufficient  tables  and 
seats  with  back  rests,  adequate  means  of  warming  food 
and  boiling  water  and  washing  facilities,  and  the  messroom 


WELFARE  ORDERS  277 

of  the  same  date  provided  for  a  wholesome  supply 
of  drinking  water  at  convenient  points  with  suitable 
drinking  vessels  in  all  factories  and  workshops  in 
which  twenty-five  or  more  persons  are  employed. 
The  third  order,  dated  October  12,  1917,  was  of 
great  significance,  providing  in  detail  for  first-aid 
and  ambulance  arrangements  in  large  groups  of 
metal  factories,  where  the  greatest  number  of 
accidents,  fatal  and  non-fatal,  are  reported  (including 
blast  furnaces,  copper  mills,  iron  mills,  foundries, 
and  metal  works).  The  same  provisions  were 
applied,  in  an  order  of  November  8,  1918,  to  saw- 
mills and  factories  in  which  articles  of  wood  are 
manufactured,  the  next  greatest  accident-producing 
group  of  works.  First  aid  was,  however,  also  re- 
quired in  various  other  classes  of  works,  for  which 
general  welfare  orders  were  made;  for  example, 
works  in  which  bichromate  of  potassium  is  used  in 
dyeing,  March  22,  1918;  oilcake  mills,  July  21,  1919; 
laundries,  April  23,  1920;  gut  scraping,  July  28, 
1920;  gutting,  salting,  and  packing  herring  in 
Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  September  9,  1920.  By  the 
beginning  of  March,  1921,  fifteen  orders  had  been 
made,  of  which  ten  made  various  requirements  for 
particular  industries.  The  interesting  progress  made 
in  development  of  these  general  welfare  orders  may 
be  followed  in  the  chapters  on  welfare  in  the  Annual 
Reports  of  the  Chief  Inspector  from  1918  onwards.* 

has  to  be  sufficiently  warmed  for  use  during  meals  and  to 
be  placed  under  the  charge  of  a  responsible  person  and  be 
kept  clean. 

*  Since  August,  1921,  an  order  has  been  made  regarding 
welfare  conditions  in  an  individual  factory. 


278  FACTORY  WELFARE 

The  Act  further  provided  that  "  orders  may  be 
made  contingent  in  respect  of  particular  require- 
ments upon  application  being  made  by  a  specified 
number  or  proportion  of  the  workers  concerned,  and 
may  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  the  views  of 
the  workers  are  to  be  ascertained,"  and  may  "  pro- 
vide for  the  workers  concerned  being  associated  in  the 
management  of  the  arrangements,  accommodation, 
or  other  facilities  for  which  provision  is  made  where 
a  proportion  of  the  cost  is  contributed  by  the 
workers;  but  no  contribution  shall  be  required  from 
the  workers  in  any  factory  or  workshop,  except  for 
the  purpose  of  providing  additional  or  special 
benefits  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Secretary  of 
State,  could  not  reasonably  be  required  to  be  pro- 
vided by  the  employer  alone,  and  unless  two-thirds 
at  least  of  the  workers  affected  in  that  factory  or 
workshop,  on  their  views  being  obtained  in  the 
prescribed  manner,  assent." 

Under  these  latter  provisions  no  order  had  been 
made  before  the  close  of  1921,  but  the  way  is  clearly 
open  for  a  new  initiative  by  the  workers,  and  in 
many  factories  a  share  in  management  of  welfare 
arrangements  by  workers  through  works'  welfare 
committees  had  indeed  begun  before  the  War. 
This  share  was  further  developed  during  the  War 
and  has  blossomed  out  in  many  new  ways  since 
1918.  In  1916,  in  a  large  national  factory,  I 
found  a  workers'  welfare  committee,  elected  on 
their  own  initiative,  fully  developed  with  an  income 
of  £50  a  week.  The  committee  members  were  nearly 
equally  men  and  women,  representing  every  branch 
of  work,  one  member  representing  the  management. 


WORKS'  WELFARE  COMMITTEES      279 

The  funds  were  raised  by  agreed  deductions 
from  wages,  no  other  collections  being  allowed  in 
the  factory.  Regular  subscriptions  were  made  to 
local  hospitals,  dispensaries,  and  to  prisoner-of- 
war  funds.  Newspapers  were  provided  daily  in 
the  canteen  and  concerts  arranged  twice  weekly. 
"  Whatever  we  want  we  can  have,"  said  a  member 
of  the  committee  to  me  in  describing  the  activities 
of  his  committee.*  In  a  printing  works  in  1918  a 
shop  committee,  consisting  of  eleven  members,  two 
representing  the  employers  and  nine  the  workers 
(four  the  women  and  five  the  men),  looked  after  all 
the  welfare  arrangements,  including  management 
of  the  canteen,  alterations  in  hours,  and  wages 
questions.  When  the  Factory  Inspector  found  the 
five  hours'  spell  being  exceeded,  the  alterations 
necessary  in  arrangements  of  work  were  made  by 
the  shop  committee.  In  a  northern  tailoring 
factory  employing  many  women  there  was,  in  1917, 
and  still  flourishing  in  1921,  a  "  Workers'  Trustees 
Council  "  on  which  workers  of  over  ten  years' 
standing  in  the  factory  served.  Their  special 
function  was  to  consider  and  report  to  the  firm 
suggestions  made  by  the  workers,  and  some  of  the 
most  fundamental,  with  regard  to  hours,  have  been 
carried  into  effect.  In  a  large  stationery  factory — 
where  a  Whitley  Works  Council  dealt  with  employ- 
ment, wages,  and  staff  questions — a  specially  elected 

*  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector  for  1916,  p.  10- 
The  following  and  many  more  examples  can  be  seen  in 
subsequent  Annual  Reports,  and  in  an  account  of  works' 
committees  issued  by  the  Ministry  of  Labour,  and  in  the 
organ  of  the  Welfare  Workers'  Institute. 


280  FACTORY  WELFARE 

committee  dealt  with  the  canteen  and  sports  ques- 
tions, and  special  education  and  health  officers  with 
continuation  classes  and  sanitation  and  health 
questions;  the  whole  welfare  organisation  was 
known  as  the  "  Personal  Service  Department." 
In  a  woollen  factory  with  representative  committees 
and  with  well- developed  canteen,  rest,  and  recrea- 
tion rooms  and  other  provisions  for  health  and 
welfare,  the  works'  welfare  magazine  took  the 
name  Service,  and  its  first  editorial,  May,  1919, 
said:  "  We  want  to  prove  to  the  world  that  the 
primary  function  of  industry  is  service." 

Examples  could  be  multiplied  from  the  experience 
of  the  Inspectorate  of  various  types  of  works' 
committees  with  practical  co-operation  of  workers 
and  management.  These  committees,  building  on 
a  basis  of  fairness  in  wages  and  other  fundamentals, 
showed  that  a  very  good  cement  had  been  found 
in  joint  work  for  welfare,  for  the  building  up  of 
peaceful  industrial  relationships,  even  before  the 
formal  development  of  joint  councils  of  the  Whitley 
type  had  begun.  It  has  been  one  of  the  great  satis- 
factions for  the  Inspectorate,  when  preparing  by 
systematic  enquiry  for  welfare  orders  or  for  the 
making  of  welfare  pamphlets,  to  come  upon  long, 
modest,  almost  unnoticed,  histories  of  welfare 
institutions  in  old-fashioned  mills  and  factories. 
There  is,  as  Prince  Kropotkin  pointed  out  in  his 
"  Fields,  Factories,  and  Workshops,"  a  survival 
all  over  England  of  smaller  factories  and  industries 
helping  to  keep  alive  an  older  social  atmosphere 
than  that  of  the  "factory  system."  Something 
has  certainly  lived  on  in  our  country  that  partly 


WORKERS  AND  MANAGERS  281 

accounts  for  the  definite  experience,  that  represen- 
tative works'  committees  can  revive  or  replace 
the  more  personal  relationships  formerly  existing 
between  management  and  workers  in  manufactures. 

Returning  for  a  moment  to  the  legal  and  official 
provision  for  the  workers'  share  in  welfare  activities, 
the  sudden  falling  away  of  employment  in  the 
summer  of  1920  limited  the  developments  in  this 
direction,  so  far  as  individual  factories  are  con- 
cerned, for  the  remainder  of  the  period  with  which 
this  book  deals.  In  the  larger  matter  of  consultation 
with  joint  councils  for  trades,  when  draft  orders 
were  considered  for  welfare  and  for  regulation  of 
dangerous  processes  or  other  matters,  great  progress 
has  been  made — e.g.,  in  the  furniture,  laundry, 
pottery,  building,  and  silk  trades.  The  Home  Office 
steadily  proceeded  with  the  making  of  welfare  orders, 
which  were  generally  received  with  enthusiasm  by 
workers  and  by  many  employers  as  instalments  of 
reforms  long  overdue;  also  with  the  helpful  series 
of  welfare  pamphlets*  designed  to  spread  a  requisite 
knowledge  of  successful  experiments  on  which 
good  hygienic  and  welfare  arrangements  can  be 
built  up  in  factories  and  workshops. 

At  the  onset  of  the  almost  catastrophic  degree  of 
unemployment  in  1920 — at  the  moment  when 
industry  appeared  to  be  in  full  flow  of  life  and 
energy— the    interest    of    the    community    swung 

*  Published  by  H.M.  Stationery  Office:  (1)  Protective 
Clothing;  (2)  Messrooms  and  Canteens;  (3)  Welfare  Super- 
vision; (4)  First-Aid  and  Ambulance;  (5)  Ventilation;  (6) 
Seats  for  Workers;  (7)  Lighting  in  Factories  and  Work- 
shops ;  (8)  Cloakrooms,  Washing  Facilities,  Drinking  Water, 
and  Sanitary  Accommodation. 


282  FACTORY  WELFARE 

round  inevitably  from  the  evolution  of  a  better 
order  within  industry  to  the  primary  problem  of 
restoration  of  that  ebbing  life  and  energy.  Never 
could  the  mutual  interdependence  of  aims  for  suc- 
cessful application  of  material  and  labour  in  industry 
and  for  health  and  welfare  of  the  human  agent  in 
production  be  more  conclusively  shown.  Nor 
could  the  social  and  economic  value  of  institutions 
making  for  harmonious  co-operation  between 
organisers  of  industry  and  the  manual  workers,  in 
constructive  self-government  within  the  factory 
system,  be  more  dramatically  demonstrated. 

It  had  been  a  splendid  and  cheering  experience 
at  the  brief  time  of  activity,  when  the  women  and 
girl  munitioners  and  substitutes  for  men  were  being 
re-absorbed  in  their  old  occupations,  in  1919  to 
1920,  to  learn  from  the  Inspectors  who  were  re- 
visiting textile  and  clothing  factories,  laundries, 
potteries,  ropeworks,  and  other  peacetime  industries 
of  women,  of  the  new  demands  for  improved  con- 
ditions that  the  women  were  making  and  with  good 
effect.  It  was  the  more  cheering  because  the  women 
had  behaved  very  well  in  the  unselfish  spirit  in 
which  they  had  gone  out  from  their  interesting 
temporary  occupations.  They  left  new  welfare 
behind  them  for  the  returning  men.  and  they  spoke 
to  the  Inspectors  with  pride  and  dignity  of  the  new 
amenities  growing  up  in  their  own  old  workplaces. 
Large  numbers  of  women  munition  workers  had 
been  recruited  from  the  old-time  industries  with 
unreformed  conditions  of  personal  hygiene,  and  they 
rightly  showed  a  marked  reluctance  to  accept  the 
old  bad   standards.     Alert  young  managers,   back 


AMENITIES  IN  OLD  WORKPLACES     283 

from  the  field  of  war,  quickly  took  the  hint  and 
moved  their  old  directors   into  the  new  and  right 
direction.     "  We  have  seen  the  impossible  under- 
taken and  accomplished,  and  we  want  to  carry  on 
here  too,"  was  the  keynote  struck  by  some  of  them. 
New  standards  had,  of  course,  been  tried  and  their 
value  proven  in  production  for  the  nation;  yet  there 
was    something    greater    than    the    realisation    by 
employers  of  the  possibility  of  more  harmonious 
relations  and  the  higher  efficiency  to  be  gained  by 
better  conditions  of  work.     There  was  a  widened 
outlook  and  a  new  spirit  of  comradeship  for  the 
workers  in  many  young  employers  lately  returned 
from  the  War,  and  a  readiness  to  put  responsibility 
on   to   workers'   representatives.     Managers   would 
"  speak   with   enthusiasm   of   the   general  interest 
and   communal   responsibility   that   has   resulted  " 
from   the  activities  of  representative  works'  com- 
mittees, and  would  praise  the  "  eminently  practical  " 
nature  of  their  proposals.*     In  socially  backward, 
rough   industries,   where  even   elementary  require-  ■ 
ments  of  the  Factory  Act  had  still  to  be  forced  on 
the  attention  of  occupiers,  the  Inspectors  hoped  for 
an  awakening  through  the  application  to  them  of 
the    new    stimulus    of    a    welfare    order.       In    the 
trades  that  were  little  organised  from  the  workers' 
side    enquiries    began    to    come    from    individual 
workers — a    hopeful    sign — as    to    when    an    order 
might  be  expected  in  their  particular  trade. 

The  effect  in  some  factories  with  old-established 

*  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector,  1919, 
chapter  viii.,  and  Annual  Report  of  Chief  Inspector,  1920, 
chapter  vi. 


284  FACTORY  WELFARE 

welfare  institutions  of  the  introduction  of  repre- 
sentative works'  committees  has  been  remarkable 
in  the  advance  of  the  workers  in  self-reliance  and 
interest  in  their  work,  and  in  initiative  in  developing 
better  conditions.  Most  striking  in  their  activities 
are  some  of  the  works'  committees  in  industries 
where  the  constitution  of  the  committee  has  been 
approved  by  the  Joint  Council  for  the  trade.  In 
one  such  factory  the  accomplished  welfare  super- 
intendent has  been  enrolled  a  member  of  the  trade 
union.  She  is  secretary  of  the  works'  committee, 
and  the  elections  of  the  committee  are  carried  out 
under  the  care  of  the  trade  union  secretary.  Here 
the  careful  supervision  of  the  health  and  safety 
sub-committee  of  the  works'  committee  is  evident 
in  the  excellence  of  the  fire  drill  and  other  arrange- 
ments and  the  good,  coloured  "  safety  first  "notices 
at  the  machines.  The  note  of  authority  that  is 
apparent  in  the  rules  drawn  up  by  the  committee 
reflects  the  representative  basis  of  the  government 
of  daily  life  in  the  factory.  x4n  extensive,  well- 
chosen  library  is  an  outstanding  feature  of  the 
social  arrangements. 

The  immense  advantage  for  future  control  of 
many  risks  and  inconveniences,  as  well  as  promo- 
tion of  constructive  welfare  work  in  industry,  that 
may  be  reaped  from  the  vigilance  of  workers, 
practised  in  methods  of  self-government,  is  so  obvious 
after  seeing  some  of  their  earlier  achievements  that 
one  can  only  marvel  that  it  has  taken  so  long  for  the 
"  captains  of  industry  "  to  begin  to  make  the  dis- 
covery. The  position  of  influence  over  the  minds 
of  workers  held  in  the  old-time  craft  industries  by 


COMMITTEES  AND  ORGANISERS      285 

the  "  master  "  craftsman  can,  it  appears,  in  a  new 
way,  be  regained  in  modern  factories  with  their 
specialised  production.  The  whole  organisation  of 
great  industry  is  necessarily  so  intricate  and  com- 
plicated that  with  the  added  machinery  of  internal 
factory  government,  by  committees,  a  "  master 
organiser  "  is  certainly  necessary  to  the  success  of 
the  undertaking.  This  will  become  increasingly 
clear  to  all  workers  capable  of  entering  into  the 
meaning  of  their  surroundings,  when  their  share 
in  self-government  grows  and  their  contact  with 
the  organiser  becomes  closer.  Already  eloquent 
tributes  may  be  heard  from  individual  workers  to 
the  "  wonderful  "  organising  gifts  of  the  employer 
or  manager  where  the  boon  of  representation  has 
been  conceded  to  them. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  wonderful  discoveries 
and  inventions  multiplying  power  to  increase  wealth 
that  could  have  been  turned  to  the  social  welfare  and 
happiness  of  the  worker,  the  factory  system  of  the 
nineteenth  century  failed  portentously  on  this 
social  side.  It  failed  through  its  blind  and  too 
often  barbarous  neglect  of  the  really  great  part  that 
can  be  played  both  in  workmanship  and  in  organisa- 
tion by  the  spiritually  endowed  human  agent  of 
production.  Man,  woman,  young  worker,  or  child, 
with  their  varying  needs  and  capacities,  they  were 
all  alike  "  hands."  Their  moral  claims  to  a  secure 
share  in  the  good  things — the  wealth  and  the  wel- 
fare— that  their  labour  helped  to  buy  for  the  whole 
people  were  not  the  only  things  denied  to  them. 
They  have  only  won  through  to  the  possibilities 
of  the  new  position  that  lies  ahead  (when  industry 


286  FACTORY  WELFARE 

can  be  revived),  through  sufferings  and  trials  that  are 
difficult  now  to  imagine,  but  of  the  story  of  which 
no  responsible  thinker  or  leader  in  the  nation's 
affairs  should  ever  be  allowed  to  remain  ignorant. 

"  In  the  struggle  for  life  to  which  industrial  under- 
takings are  subject,"  said  the  Belgian  Vandevelde 
many  years  ago,  "  the  final  victory  is  reserved  for 
those  who  know  how  to  meet  their  rivals  not  only 
with  the  most  perfect  machinery,  but  yet  more  with 
the  best  human  material,  the  most  solid  array  of 
moral  and  intellectual  forces." 

That  was  a  warning  that  need  not  have  fallen 
on  deaf  ears,  even  in  an  advowedly  competitive 
society,  and  that  might  have  been  understood  by 
the  factory  organisers  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  is  a  new  world  that  has  to  be  faced  now,  and 
although  we  should  riot  forget  that  saying,  we 
may  better  dwell  on  the  thought  that  harmony  in 
industrial  relationships  promises  to  be  the  natural 
outcome  of  associated  human  effort  for  the  sound, 
plentiful  production  that  mankind  so  greatly  needs 
and  that  may  minister  to  a  reviving  desire  for 
fitness  and  beauty  in  the  world. 


APPENDIX  I 

DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES 

Regulations  made  by  the  Secretary  of  State  for  Processes 

Certified  as  Dangerous  under  Section  79, 

Factory  and  Workshop  Act,  1901. 


288 


APPENDIX  I 


1. 

Date  of 

2. 
Class  of  21  a  n  ufacture, 
Machinery.  Plant, 
Process  or  Descrip- 
tion of  Manual 
Labour. 

3. 

Kind  of  Risks. 

4. 

Nature  of  Injuries 

to  be  Prevented. 

Certifi- 
cate. 

Regula- 
tions. 

1.    Feb.  24, 
1921. 

Dec.  19, 
1921. 

1.  Aerated  Water. — 
Manufacture    of, 
and  processes  in- 
cidental thereto. 

Accidents 

from  bursting 
bottles. 
Exposure      to 
wet. 

Injury  to  life  and 
limb  from  frag- 
ments of  bursting 
bottles. 

Injury  to  health 
from  wet. 

2.     May  9, 

1892. 

2.  Arsenic. — Extrac- 
tion and  use  of. 

Poisonous 
dust. 

Eczematous  erup- 
tions. 

Gastro  -  intestinal 
symptoms. 

3.    Aug.  26, 
1907. 

Dec.  30, 
1908. 

*3.  Benzine. — Manu- 
facture of  nitro 
and  amido  deri- 
vatives of  and  of 
explosives    with 
dinitrobenzol   or 
dinitrotoluol . 

Poisonous 
fumes       and 
dust. 

Profound  changes 
in  the  condition 
of  the  blood. 

Muscular  and 
nerve  affections; 
eye  affections. 

4.     June  6, 
1907. 

June  26, 
1908. 

4.  Brass.  —  Casting 
of,  or  any  alloy 
of,    copper  with 
zinc. 

injurious 
fumes. 

Brass  casters'  ague 
or  fever. 

5.    Oct.  29, 
1910. 

5.  Briquette  s. — 

Manufacture    of 
patent  fuel  with 
addition           of 
pitch. 

injurious  dust. 

Ulceration  of 

skin. 
Epitheliomatous 

cancer. 
Eye  troubles. 

6.    March  7, 
1911. 

April  16 
1912. 

1                         •  ,    , 
6.  Bronzing  with  drj 

metallic  powders 

in        letterpress 

printing,     litho 

graphic  printing 

and           ooating 

metal  shoots. 

Injurious  dust 

Respiratory  irrita- 
tion. 

Gastric  disturb- 
ance. 

See  footnote  to  p.  290. 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    289 


Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 


Remarks. 


{a)  Machines  to  be  so  constructed,  placed,  and  fenced 
as  to  prevent  accident  from  bursting  bottles. 

(6)  Face  and  eye  guards,  band  and  arm  guards,  to  be 
supplied  to  the  workers  and  worn  by  them. 

(c)  Waterproof  aprons,  boots,  and  clogs  to  be  supplied. 


First  certified  Sept., 
1896. 

Special  rules  dated 
Aug.,  1897,  were 
superseded  by  these 
Regulations,  1921. 


Note. — There  are  no  regulations  at  present,  but  under 
Factory  and  Workshop  Act,  1901,  Sects.  74  and  75, 
mechanical  ventilation  must  be  provided  to  prevent 
inhalation  of  injurious  dust,  vapour,  etc.,  and  wash 
ing  conveniences  must  be  provided;  and  persons  are 
excluded  from  workroom  where  arsenic  gives  rise  to 
dust,  and  provision  for  meals  must  be  made  elsewhere 


formerly  included 
in  Special  Rules  for 
Paints  and  Colours, 
which  were  revised 
in  1907  for  Lead 
risks  only.  (See 
No.  30.) 


(a)  Removal  or  prevention  of  fumes  or  dust. 
(6)  Effective  ventilation. 

(c)  Overalls,  gloves,  clogs,  supplied  to  workers. 

(d)  Lavatories,    baths,    and    prohibition  of    meals 

workrooms. 

(e)  Medical  examination  and  power  of  suspension. 


Special  Rules,  1908, 
rendered  obsolete 
by  Chemicals, 
No.  9. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  female  workers  from  casting  shop. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  fumes  at  points 

of  origin. 

(c)  Washing  accommodation. 


First  certified  July 
10,  1896.  Special 
Rules,  dated  1896, 
w  ere  rendered  obso- 
lete by  these  Regu- 
lations, 1908. 


Note. — Precautions  voluntarily  adopted  by  employers. 
i.e. — 

(a)  Prevention     of    escape    of    dust    by    boxing  -  in 

elevators. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  dust. 

(c)  Protective  clothing;  goggles. 

(d)  Cloakroom. 


Draft  Regulations 
withdrawn,  1913, 
after  Public  En- 
quiry and  on  the 
voluntary  adop- 
tion by  occupiers 
of  precautions  in 
Column  5. 


(a)  Exhaust   ventilation    and    appliances    to    prevent 

escape  of  dust  into  the  air  of  the  room. 

(b)  Protective  clothing  supplied  to  workers. 

(c)  Washing   accommodation   and  place  for   outdoor 

clothing. 


290 


APPENDIX  I 


l. 


( '•  rtifi- 
cate. 


7.     Oct.  6, 
1921. 


8.   April  24, 
1914. 


9. 


Dec.  14, 
1920. 


10. 


June  27, 
1913. 


Nov.  28, 
1921. 


Aug.    15, 
1913. 


Dec.    21 
1911. 


Class  oj  Mn  n  afact »  re, 

Mach  iru  ry,  Plant, 
Process  or  Descrip- 
tion nj  Manual 
Labour. 


7.  Buildings  in  courst 
of  construction, 
alteration,  re 
pair,  or  demoli- 
tion. 


8         •/  Risks, 


Accidents  fn  he 

falls  or  fall- 
<  >dies  or 
from  machin- 
ery. 
P  1  u  m  b  i  s  m 
(painters  and 
plumbers). 


Celluloid. —  Manu 
facture,  manipu- 
lation, and  stor- 
age of. 


*9.  Chemical  s.— 

Manufacture  and 
processes  inci- 
dental thereto 
carried  on  in 
"Chemical 
Works  "  (a  de 
lined  in  the 
Schedule). 


*10.  Chromate     and 
Bichromate    of 
Potassium, 
Sodium,  manu 
facture  of. 


11.  Cotton     Cloth 
Weaving. 


Nature  of  Injuru  i 

to  be  Prevented. 


Injury   to    life   oi 
limb. 

Plumbism. 


Fire  (highly  in- 
f  1  a  m  m  a  b  1  e 

material). 


Injury    to    life   oi 
health  from  fire. 


i  !austic  liquids  Burns,  etc.,  by  fall- 
in  vats.  etc.        ing     into     vats. 
Poisono  u  s     etc.,  of  acid. 

gases.  "  Gassing." 

Injurious  dusl    Respiratory  affec- 
Explosions and     tions   from    irri- 
iirc.  tant  dust. 

Inflammation     of 
-    and    other 
eye  injuries. 

■  to  ex- 
plosions. 


Injurious  dust  Peculiar 
and  fumes.         erosion 


Humidity. 
High  tempera- 
tures. 


Le  dons 

of    sep- 
tum of  the 
and   chronic    ul- 
ceration   of    the 

skin. 


Ill  health  and  dis 
comfort. 


*  These  Chemical  Regulations  were  confirmed  on  July  11 ,  19  2,  and  in  con 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    291 


5. 


Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 


Remarks. 


(a)  Provision  and  maintenance  of  suitable  scaffolding  of  In  draft  June,  1922. 

sound  material. 

(b)  Efficient  lighting  of  working  places  and  approaches. 

(c)  Special  safeguards  for  working  on  roofs. 

(d)  Safeguards  for  use  of  hoisting  appliances,  cranes,  etc. 

(e)  Fencing    of   machinery  and  safety  provisions  for 

boilers. 
(/)  Provision  for  painters  and  plumbers  of  washing 
facilities;  prohibition  of  taking  meals  and  of 
depositing  clothing  in  workshop ;  moist  method  to 
be  adopted  for  rubbing  down  or  scraping  painted 
surfaces  containing  lead. 


(a)  Limitation  of  the  amount  of  material  or  of  finished 

articles  allowed  in  workrooms  or  on  the  premises 

(b)  Method  of  storage  prescribed. 

(c)  Precautions  respecting  lights,  stoves,  smoking,  use 

of  sealing  wax. 

(d)  Means  of  escape  and  of  extinguishing  fire. 

(e)  Competent   person   to   supervise  and   enforce    the 

regulations. 


(a)  Fencing  of  vats  and  gangways,  etc. 

(b)  Adequate  lighting. 

(c)  Breathing  apparatus,   oxygen,  etc.,   for   rescue  in 

case  of  "  gassing." 

(d)  Protective  clothing  supplied  to  workers, 
(c)  Exhaust  ventilation  and  prevention   of  escape  of 

dust  from  certain  machines. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  persons  under  18. 

(6)  Removal  or  prevention  of  steam  and  dust. 

(r)  Lighting  and  fencing  of  vats,  etc. 

{d)  Protective  clothing  and  respirators  supplied. 

(c)  Cloakroom,  lavatory,  baths,  provided. 

(/)  Medical  examination  and  power  of  suspension. 

(a)  First  aid  for  treatment  of  small  ulcers. 

(h)  Daily  cleaning  floors,  stairs,  etc. 


(a)  Hygrometrical  control. 

(b)  Humidity  tables  and  temperature  limit. 

(c)  Chemical  and  volume  standard  of  ventilation. 

(d)  Purification  of  water  for  steam. 


Tn  draft  June,  1922. 
First  certified   April 

24,  1892. 
Special  Rules  to  be 

superseded  by  th  ese 

Regulations. 


Special  Rules.  1900, 
were  superseded  by 
these  Regulations, 
191.3,  and  these 
to  be  revoked  by 
Chemical  Regula- 
tions. 

(See  No.  9.) 


These  Regulations 
were  made  under 
the  Cotton  Cloth 
Factories  Act.  1911. 


sequence  the  Benzine  (No.  3)  and  Chromate  (No.  10)  Regulations  were  revoked. 

20 


292 


APPENDIX  I 


1. 

Date  of 

o 

Cla  88  of  Ma  n  "fact  u  re. 
Mack  ln»  ry,  Plant, 

Process  or  Descrip- 
tion <>j  Mi 
Labour. 

3. 
Kind  of  Risks 

4. 

C(  r 
cale. 

/,'.  /  /</- 

\  ature  of  Injuries 

to  be  Prevented. 

12.   Sept,  30. 
1902. 

Oct.  28, 

1904. 

12.  Docks,  Wharves, 
and         Quays, 
loading  and  un- 
loading at,  and 
loading,        un- 
loading or  coal- 
ing any  ships  in 
any  dock,  har- 
bour, or  canal. 

Risksto  life  and 
limb  from  dan- 
gerous mach- 
inery and  ap- 
pliances, and 
ladders     and 
corners,    and 
lack  of  fenc- 
ing for  dan- 
gerous hatch- 
ways, etc. 

Injun*  to  life  and 
limb  by  accident 
from  machinery, 
etc. 

Drowning,  falls, 
etc. 

13.         _ 

13.  Earthenware  and 
China. 
(See  under  Pot- 
teries, No.  32.) 

14.    Aug.   3, 
1903. 

Nov.  24, 
L9D3. 

14.  Electric  Accumu- 
lators,     manu- 
facture of. 

Poisonous  dust 
and        fumes 
(lead). 

Plumbism. 

15.    Aug.  9, 
1907. 

Jan.  1, 
1909. 

15.  Electricity. — 

(feneration, 
transformation, 
distribution, 
and  use  of. 

Danger     to 
health    or  to 
life  and  limb 
from     shock, 

or   burns,   or 

lire. 

Deep  and  inflamed 
burns  and  de- 
struction of  tissue 
from  continuous 
currents. 

Sudden  arrests  of 
hearts  action  or 
of  respiration,  vio- 
lent muscular  eon- 
traction  chiefly 
from  alternating 
currents. 

16.  Sept.  21, 
1908. 

Dec.  22, 
1908. 

16.  Enamelling, 
vitreous,        of 
metals  or  glass. 

Poisonous 
dust. 

Plumbism. 

DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES   293 


Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  boys  under  16  under  certain  conditions. 
(6)  Fencing  of  dangerous  parts,  of  footways,  gearing, 

motors,  etc.,  and  prohibition  of  interferences  by 

unauthorised  persons. 

(c)  Lighting  of  dangerous  places  at  night. 

(d)  Provision  of  gangways:  slippery  stages  to  be  sanded. 

(e)  Testing  of  chains,  gear,  etc. 

(/)  Provision  for  rescue  from  drowning. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  18  and  women 

from  manipulation  of  dry  compounds  of  lead  and 
from  pasting. 

(b)  Medical  examination  and  suspension. 

(c)  Prevention,  or  removal  by  exhaust  ventilation,  of 

dust  and  fumes. 

(d)  General  ventilation  and  ample  cubic  space. 

(e)  Protective  clothing  and  cloakroom. 
(/)  Washing  facilities. 


(a)  Highly     technical     safeguards     for     construction, 

installation,  protection  and  working  of  apparatus, 
conductors,  motors,  switches,  etc. 

(b)  Provision  for  earthing,  insulating  stands,  adequate 

space. 

(c)  Technical  qualifications  for  operators,  avoidance  of 

solitary  working. 

(d)  Instructions  for   treatment  of    the  injured   to   be 

affixed. 


Remarks. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  16  years  of  age.  I 

(b)  Periodic    medical    examination     with    power    of 

(c)  Ample  cubic  space.  [suspension. 

(d)  Efficient  lighting.  | 

(e)  Good  condition  of  floors  and  cleaning  of  same. 

(/)  Prevention  of  or  removal  by  exhaust  ventilation  of 
(?)  Washing  facilities. [dust,  spray,  or  fumes. 


294 


APPENDIX  I 


l. 


( '(  rtifi- 

cote. 

17.    June  (>, 
1902. 


18.  Sept.  22, 

1902. 


Regula- 
tions. 


Aug.  10. 
L902. 


June  2.'5, 
1903. 


Class  of  Manufacture. 

Machinery,  Plant, 
Process,  or  Descrip- 
tion of  Manual 
Lab\ 


17.  Felt  Hats,  manu- 
facture of, 
where  inflam- 
mable solvent 
is  used. 


18.  File    Cutting    by 

hand . 


Kind  of  Bisks. 


Nature  of  Injuries 
to  be  Prevented. 


Fire    and    ex- Burns  and  shock, 
plosions. 


Metallic 
dust. 


lead 


I'lumbism. 


19. 


May  II. 
1905. 


Feb.  26, 
1900. 


20.     Oct.  14, 
L908. 


Oct.  15, 
1909. 


19.  Flax    and 
spinning 


Tow,  Irritant    dust, 

and     artificial   hu- 

midification 

and  high  tern 

peratures. 


20.  Grinding  of  Irritant 
Metals  and  Racing  (silica 
of  Grindstones. 


dust 
and 
gritty    parti- 
i -i)  steel 
and  iron  pow- 
der). 
Accidents. 
Moisture. 


Phthisis  with 

dyspnoea  and 
other  respiratory 
trouble. 

Circulatory  and 
cardiac  oppres- 
sion from  moist 
heat. 

Skin  troubles,  ec- 
zema, and  folli- 
culitis. 


Fibroid  phthisis, 
asthma,  and 
other  respir 
troubles  (exces 
sive  mortality 
among  grinders) 

Later  stages,  fre- 
quently tuber 
cular. 

Eye  injuries  from 
Hying  motes  and 
sometimes  fur 
ther  accidents 
from         dimmed 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    295 


5. 

Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 

6. 

Remarks. 

(a)  Ventilation  of  proofing,  and  stove  and  drying  rooms. 

(b)  Restriction  on  the  number  of   wet  spirit-proofed 

hats  per  cubic  feet  of  air  space  in  workroom. 

(c)  Spirit-proofed  hats  to   be  opened  out  singly  and 

exposed  before  placing  in  stoves. 

(a)  Cubic  space  and  floor  space  prescribed  per  "  stock." 
(6)  Flooring  to  be  substantial,  washable,  and  in  good 
repair. 

(c)  Good  general  ventilation. 

(d)  Washing  facilities. 

(e)  Protective  clothing  to  be  worn. 

(a)  Maintenance  of  prescribed  standard  of  purity  of 

the  air. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  dust. 

(c)  Hygrometrical  control  of  humidity  and  tempera- 

ture. 

(d)  Purity  of  water  for  humidifying. 

(e)  Efficient  splash-boards  in  wet  spinning. 

(/)  Protective  clothing  and  respirators  to  be  provided. 
(g)  Sound  condition  of  floors  and  drainage. 
(h)  Cloakroom  accommodation. 

First  certified  Jan.  3, 
1894.  A  Depart- 
mental Committee 
which  was  appoint- 
ed, 1911,  to  con- 
sider the  amend- 
ment to  these  Re- 
gulations reported 
1914,  and  their 
recommenda- 
tions were  issued  as 
an  informal  draft  of 
amended  Regula- 
tion. Further  steps 
have  not  yet  been 
taken. 

(a)  Removal  of  dust  by  exhaust  ventilation,  etc. 

(b)  Separation  of  "  racing  "  from  other  processes. 

(c)  Respirators  to  be  worn  while  "  racing." 

(d)  Special  cleansing  of  floors,   belt  races,  and  walls, 

ceilings,  and  windows. 

296 


APPENDIX  I 


1. 

Date  of 


(  'i  rlifi- 

cale. 


Regula- 
tion*. 


2. 
Class  of  Manufacture, 
Machinery,  Plant, 
Process  or  Descrip- 
tion of  Manual 
Labour. 


Kind  of  Risks. 


Nature  of  1 
to  be  Prevented. 


21. 


Jan.  29, 
1907. 


Aug.  28, 
1907. 


21.  Hemp    and   Jute  Vegetable  dust  R  e  s  p  i  r  a  t  o  r  y 
spinning      and  Liability  to  te-i    troubles. 


weaving. 


tanus  in  casejTetanus  likely  to 

of  lesions   of    follow. 

the  skin.  Accidents       from 

High  tempera-     machinery. 

ture  in  spin-  Rheumatism  com- 

ning  and  hu-     in  on. 

midity. 
Cold  and 

draughts     in 

preparatory 

process. 


22.    Oct.  15, 

1920. 


Dec.  29, 
1921. 


22.  Hides  and  Skins.* 
— Dry  or  dry- 
salted,  imported 
from  Africa  (in- 
cluding Mada- 
gascar) or  Asia 
(including  Ja 
pan  and  Malay 
Archipelago) 
handling  of. 


Anthrax  spores 
in  the  mater 
ial. 


Anthrax  infection 
through  abrasion 
of  the  skin  or  by 
inhalation  of  in 
fected  dust. 


23.     May  2:}, 
1907. 


Dec.  20. 
1907. 


23.  Horsehair  from 
China,  Siberia, 
and  Russia,  use 
of. 


Anthrax  spores 

in  the  mater- 
ial. 


Anthrax. 


*   Under  the  Anthrax  Prevention  Act,  1919,  provision  has  been  made 
and  of  all  wool  and  animal  hair  from  Egypt.     (See  also  Nos.  37  and  38.) 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    297 


Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 


(a)  Maintenance  of  prescribed  standard  of  purity  of  the 

air. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  dust. 

(c)  Minimum  temperature  in  certain  rooms. 

(d)  Hygrometrical  control  of  humidity  and  high  tem- 

perature in  other  rooms. 

(e)  Respirators  to  be  provided  in  certain  processes. 


Remarks. 


(a)  First-aid  equipment. 

(b)  Cautionary  notice  respecting  anthrax  to  be  affixed. 

(c)  Washing  facilities. 

(d)  Cloakroom  and  mess-room  accommodation. 

(e)  Provision  for  disinfection  or  destruction  of  wrappers 

in  which  hides  and  skins  have  been  packed  (in 
tanneries  only). 
Note. — The  Regulations  (a)  and   (e)  above  apply  to 
docks,  warehouses,  and  quays,  as  well  as  factories. 


First  certified  June, 
1903.  The  Special 
Rules,  1902,  were 
converted  into  Re- 
gulations, 1921. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  persons  under  18  from  employment  on 

material  not  disinfected. 

(b)  Register  of  prescribed  particulars  of  disinfection. 

(c)  Material  not  disinfected  to  be  stored  separately,  and 

opened  and  sorted  separately,  and  in  connection 
with  exhaust  ventilation. 

(d)  All  manipulation  subsequent  to  opening  and  sorting 

prohibited  until  material  has  been  disinfected. 

(e)  Willowing  and  dust-extracting  machines  to  be  pro- 

vided with  exhaust  ventilation. 
(/)  All  dust  to  be  intercepted  and  burnt. 
(g)  Protective  clothing  to  be  provided  and  respirators. 
(A)  Cloakroom,  meal  rooms,  and  washing  facilities. 
(i)  First-aid  requisites. 
(j)  Prohibition  of  work  on  material  not  disinfected  if 

having  open  cut  or  sore. 
(k)  Cautionary  notice  respecting  anthrax  to  be  affixed 


for  the  disinfection,  on  arrival  in  Great  Britain,  of  goat  hair  from  India, 


298 


APPENDIX  I 


24. 


25. 


26. 


1. 

Date  of 

2. 

faeture, 
Machiru  ry,  Plant, 

Process,  or  Descrip- 
tion of  Manual 
Labour. 

3. 
Kind  of  Risks. 

4. 

Nature  of  Injuries 
to  be  Prevented. 

Certifi- 
cate. 

Regula- 
tion*. 

Dec.  21, 
1920. 

Mar.  31. 
1922. 

21 .  India  -  rubber. — 
Certain       pro- 
cesses   inciden- 
tal to  the  manu- 
facture    of, 
and  of  articles 
and  goods  made 
wholly  or  par- 
tially of  india- 
rubber. 

Poisonous  dust 
(lead). 

1 n jury       t  o 
health     from 
volatile     va- 
pour. 

Accident  from 
inflammable 
vapour. 

Phimbism. 

Peripheral  neuritis, 
or  inflammatory) 
condition  of 
nerves  due  to 
effects  of  bisul- 
phide of  carbon. 

Sept.  3, 
1920. 

Aug.  23, 
1921. 

25.  Lead,*           com- 
pounds  of,   in- 
cluding carbon- 
ate,    sulphate, 
nitrate,         and 
acetate  of  lead, 
manufacture  of. 

Poisonous  dust 
and        fumes 
(lead        com- 
pounds). 

Plumbism. 

Dec.  13, 
L910. 

Am;.  VI, 
1911. 

26.  Lead.*  —  Smelt- 
ignof  materials 
containing 
manufacture  of 
red    or    orange 
lead      and     of 
flaked  litharge. 

Poisonous  dust 
and       fumes 
(lead       com- 
pounds). 

Phimbism. 

*  The  Women  and  Young  Persons  (Employment  in  Lead  Processes) 
nected  with  lead  manufacture  and  in  any  process  involving  the  use  of  lead 
be  splashed  with  a  lead  compound,  subject  to  medical  examination,  provision 
room  and  cloakroom,  and  cleanliness  of  tools,  apparatus,  and  workrooms. 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    299 


5. 


Chief  Prevt  ntive  Measures  Imposed 
by  (he  Regulations. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  all  young  persons  under  18  and  girls 

under  18  from  any  lead  process,  and  of  all  young 
persons  and  women  from  mixing  or  incorporating 
dry  compound  of  lead  with  rubber. 

(b)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  18  from  fume 

process,  and  those  under  16  from  a  room  where 
such  process  is  carried  on. 

(c)  Limitation  of  employment  in  fume  process  of  any 

person  for  more  than  5  hours  a  day  and  mo  re  than  2  \ 
hours  at  a  time  without  at  least  1  hour's  interval". 

(d)  Removal  of  dust  and  fumes  by  exhaust  ventilation, 

and  prevention  of  escape  of  fumes  from  vulcanis- 
ing machines  and  troughs. 

(e)  Protective  clothing  to  be  provided  and  worn. 
(/)  Cloakroom  and  mess-room  accommodation. 

(g)  Washing  facilities.  [pension. 

(It)  Periodic  medical  examination  and  power  of  sus- 


6. 
Remarks. 


First  certified  Dec, 

1896.  Special  rules 
for  vulcanising 
india-rubber  by 
means  of  bisul- 
phide  of    carbon, 

1897,  converted 
into  these  Regu- 
lations for  India- 
rubber,  1922. 


(a)  Methods   of    controlling   lead   dust   prescribed    by 

damping,  by  ventilation,  by  careful  handling  of 
the  materials. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removing  fumes  or  means  of 

preventing  their  escape  into  workroom. 

(c)  Periodic  medical  examination  and  power  of  sus- 

pension. 

(d)  Protective  clotliing  provided  and  arrangements  for 

(e)  Respirators  to  be  supplied.  [washing  same. 
(/)  Cloakroom,  mess-room,  washing  facilities. 


First  certified  as 
dangerous,  May  9, 
1892.  These  Re- 
gulations super- 
sede the  Sj>ecial 
Rules  for  White 
Lead  dated  June, 
1899. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  16  and  women 

from  any  lead  process. 

(b)  Suppression  or  removal  of  dust  or  fumes  by  exhaust 

ventilation,  damping,  etc. 

(c)  Provision  of  protective  clothing  and  respirators  in 

certain  processes.  [pension. 

(d)  Periodic  medical  examination  with  power  of  sus- 

(e)  Exclusion  of  persons  from  furnaces  until  ventilated. 
(/)  Restriction  of  duration  of  work  to  3  hours  in  dry 

flues  or  condensing  chambers. 
(g)  Provision    of     mealroom,    clothing,    and    overall 
accommodation,  washing  facilities,  and  baths. 


Act,  1920,  prohibits  altogether  their  employment  in  certain  processes  con- 
compounds  and  causing  dust  and  fumes,  or  in  which  the  workers  are  liable  to 
ot  exhaust  ventilation  to  remove  dust  or  fumes,  protective  clothing  mess- 


300 


APPENDIX  I 


1. 

Dale  of 

2. 

Classoj Manufacture, 

Machim  ry,  Plant, 

Process,  or  Descrip- 
tion oj  Manual 
Labour. 

3. 

Kind  of  Bisks. 

4. 

Nature  of  Injuries 
to  be  Prevented. 

Certifi- 
cate. 

Regula- 
tions. 

27.    Aug.  24, 
190G. 

May  2, 
L905. 

27.  Locomotives  and 
Waggons,     use 
of,  on  lines  and 
sidings     in     or 
used  in  connec- 
tion   with  pre- 
mises under  the 
Factory  Acts. 

Accidents  from 
locomotives, 
etc.,inmotiun 
by    mechani- 
cal power. 

Injuries  to  life  and 
limb. 

28.     June  2, 
1892. 

28.  Lucifer  Matches, 
manufacture  of. 

Phosphorus 
necrosis. 

29.    Oct.  17, 

1905. 

Nov.  7, 
1904. 

29.  Mules,   Sell-Act- 
ing,     spinning 
by  means  of. 

Accidents. 

Injuries  to  life  and 
limb    from    ma- 
chines in  motion. 

30.      Dec.  1, 
1906. 

Jan.  25. 
1907. 

30.  Paints      and 
Colours,  manu- 
facture of. 

Poisonous  dust 
(lead). 

Plumbism. 

31.     Oct.  29. 
1910. 

31.  Paten  t  Fuel, 

manufacture  of 
(See    u  n  d  e  i 
Bri  quettes 

No.  5.) 

32.  Aug.  25. 
1911. 

Jan.  2, 
L913. 

32.  Pottery. —  Manu 
facture  or  dec 
oration    of,    oi 
any  process  in 
oidental   there 

Poisonous  dust 
(lead). 

Silica  and  othei 
dust,        heat 
and  humidity 

Plumbism. 

Phthisis  or  other 
respiratory  dis- 
ease or  injury 
to    health    from 

DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    301 


5. 

Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 

G. 
Remarks. 

(a)  Technical  provisions  as  to  position,  and  use  of  point 

rods,   signal   wires,   condition   and   use   of   rails, 
supply  of  coupling  poles,  etc. 

(b)  Provisions  respecting  movements  of  persons  and  of 

locomotives  and  waggons. 

(c)  Efficient  lighting  after  dark. 

(d)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  18  from  employ- 

ment  on   certain   capstans   and   as   locomotive 
drivers,  or  as  a  shunter. 

(e)  Protection  of  water  gauges  on  boilers  whether  on 

locomotives  or  stationary. 

Note.—  The  White  Phosphorus  Prohibition  Act,  1908, 
forbids  the  use  of  white  phosphorus  in  the  manu- 
facture of  matches  and   also  the   sale   of   matches 
made  with  the  same. 

Speoial     Rules, 
March  31, 1900,  now 
obsolete,    as   white 
phosphorus    is     no 
longer    allowed    in 
the  manufacture. 

(a)  Special  fencing  of  machines  and  accessory  gearing. 

(b)  Duty  laid  on  "minder"   to  ensure  that  no  child 

cleans  any  part  of  the  mule  in  motion;  that  no 
woman,  young  person,  or  child  works  between 
the  fixed  and  traversing  parts  of  the  mule;  and 
that  no  person  is  between  those  parts  unless  the 
moving  part  is  stopped  on  the  outward  run. 

(c)  "  Minder"  responsible  for  the  starting  of  the  mule. 

(a)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  and  women. 

(b)  Periodic  medical  examination,  with  power  of  sus- 

pension. 

(c)  Exhaust  ventilation  to  remove  dust. 

(d)  Protective  clothing  supplied. 

(e)  Cloakroom,  mess-room,  washing  facilities. 

First  certified   1892. 

Special  Rules,  1894, 
superseded         by 
these  Regulations. 

(a)  Exclusion  of  women,  young  persons,  and  children 
from  certain  processes  in  the  preparation  of  lead 
glaze,  etc.,  and  from  cleaning  in  dipping  house, 
and  as  regards  a  young  person  and  child  from 
employment  as  a  dipper. 

Earthenware        and 
china  manufactur- 
ing.      First  certi- 
fied Dec.  24,  1892. 

(Continued  oh  p.  302.) 


302 


APPENDIX  I 


l. 

Date  of 


t ',  rtifi- 
cute. 


32.    Aug.  25, 
1911. 


Regula- 
tions. 


Jan.  2, 
1013. 


Class  of  Manufact  are, 
Machinery,  Plant, 
Process  or  Descrip- 
tion of  Manual 
Labour. 


32.  Pottery  (contd.) 
— to.  and  the 
making  of 

lithographic 
transfers,  frits, 
or  glazes  for  use 
in  such  manu- 
facture or  dec- 
orations or  pro- 
cesses'. 


Kind  <if  Risks. 


Heavy 


Nature  of  Injur: 

to  be.  ]'/<  <;  ;,/,  i/. 


33. 


Mar.  22, 
1918. 


April  26, 
1919 


34.    A.U  ! 

1913. 


April  1, 
1914. 


inhalation    of 

silica     or    other 

dust. 
Injury    to    health 

from      excessive 

heat    or   humid- 

ity. 
Strain  from  lifting 

and    carrying 

weights. 


33.  Refractory  Mater- 
ials. —  Crushing 
giinding,  s:eA  m  ;, 
and    other    pro- 

(•esse-:      involving 

i  he  manipulation 
ofauch  materials. 


34.  Ships,    Construc- 
tion and  Repair 
of, in  shipbuild 
ing  yards. 


Silica  dust. 


Accidents. 


Injury  to  lungs 
from  the  inhala- 
tion of  silica 
dust. 

Tuberculosis. 

Silicosis. 


Injury  to  life  and 
limb  from  falls 
and  falling 
bodies. 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    303 


5. 

Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  (he  Regulations. 

6. 
Remarks. 

(b)  Exclusion  of  women,  young  persons  and  children 

from   certain   heavy  work   and   work   involving 
strain   without  a  certificate  of  "permission  to 
work" j  and  total  exclusion  of  young  persons  and 
children  from  employment  in  wedging  of  clay, 
and  of  females  from  carrying  saggars  full  of  ware. 

(c)  Periodic     medical     examination     with     power     of 

suspension. 

(d)  Protective  clothing  to  be  supplied,  washed,  repaired, 

and  kept  in  proper  custody.     Respirators  to  be 
supplied  hi  certain  processes.                    [provided. 

(e)  Washing  facilities,  cloakroom,  and  meal-room  to  be 
(/j  Milk  or  cocoa  to  be  provided  for  all  women  and  young 

persons  if  working  before  9a.m.  in  certain  processes. 

((j)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  all  processes  giving  rise  to 
dust  (lead  or  Hint,  etc.),  and  ventilation    of   all 
rooms  and  of  drying  stoves. 

(h)  Means  for  preventing  excessive  heat  and  humidity 
in  workrooms  and  in  ovens. 

(i)  Special  means  for  cleaning  floors,  benches,  boards, 
etc.,  where  lead  glaze  is  used. 

(/)  Special  precautions  as  regards  lead  dust  and  splash- 
ing of  lead  glaze  in  majolica  painting,  aerograph- 
ing, and  lithographic  transfers. 

(k)  Limitation  of  hours  of  men  as  well  as  women  in  dipping 

and  some  other  lead  processes  to  48  hours  per  week. 

Intervals  prescribed  in   certain  lead   processes   of 

\  hour  every  4  hours  or  4|  hours  for  every  person. 

(1)  Power  given  to  inspector  to  take  samples  of    any 
material  for  analysis.                                        [tions. 

(m)  Works  Inspector  to  supervise  observance  of  regula- 

Special  Rules  were 
established,  1894, 
amended  in  1898, 
and  again  in  1903; 
after  arbitration 
these  Rules  were 
in  turn  superseded 
by  the  present 
Regulations,  1913. 

(a)  Prescribed  methods  of  controlling   and  removing 

dust  by  exhaust  ventilation,  damping,  etc.,  and 
by  prohibition  of  certain  methods  of  work. 

(b)  Provision  of  respirators. 

(a)  Sufficient  supply  of  good  materials  for  stages. 
( A)  Construction  of  stages  to   be  of  sound   material, 
secure,  and  erected  by  competent  persons. 

(c)  Gangways  to  be  fenced,  also  openings  in  decks  to  be 

provided  with  covers. 

(d)  Adequate  lighting  while  work  is  in  progress. 

(e)  Ambulance  and  lirst-aid  provision. 

(/)  Competent   person   to   supervise   and  enforce   ob- 
servance of  regulations. 

304 


APPENDIX  I 


1. 

Date  of 


35. 


cate. 

Sept.  25, 
190S. 


Regula- 
tions. 


June  30, 
1909. 


30. 


37>  June  17, 
1905. 


Dec.  18. 
1908. 


Class  of  Ma  n  ufactu  re. 

Machinery,  Plant. 

Process  or  J1' 

tion  of  Manned 

Labour. 


35.  Tinning  of  Metal 
Hoi  1  o  w-  w  are, 
Iron  Drums,  and 

harness  furniture. 
(Coating  of  metal 
articles  with  a 
mixture  of  lead 
and  tin  and  lead 
alone.) 


36.  White  Lead.  (See 


Kind  of  Risks, 


Poisonous 
fumes  (lead). 


Nature  of  Injuries 
to  be  Prevented. 


Plumbism. 


under  Lead  Co'mpounds,  No.  25.) 


37.    Wool,     East|  Anthrax  spores'  Anthrax. 
Indian,  use  of.*     in  th^  mater- 
ial. 


38-   June  17, 
1905. 


Dec.  12, 
1905. 


38.  Wool   -  Sorting, 
w  i  1  I  e  y  i  n  g  , 

washing,  comb 
ing,  and  card- 
ing, and  of  goat 
hair,  camel 
hair,  and  pro- 
cesses inciden 
tal  thereto.* 


Anthraxsporesi  Anthrax, 
in  the  mater- 
ial. 


39-    Aug.  10. 
1920. 


39.  Woodworking 
Machinery,     use 

of. 


Accidents  from 
(1  a  a  serous 
machinery. 

Injurious  dust. 


Injury  to  life  and 

limb. 
Injury    to    health 

— respiratory 

troubles. 


40. 


June  1. 
1907. 


Aug.    6, 

!'.t')7. 


40.  Yarn,  heading  of 
dyed,  by  means 
of  a  lead  com- 
pound. 


Poisonous  dust  Plumbism. 
(lead). 


See  footnote,  p.  296. 


DANGEROUS  AND  UNHEALTHY  INDUSTRIES    305 


Chief  Preventive  Measures  Imposed 
by  the  Regulations. 


Remarks. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  persons  under  16  from  tinning. 

(6)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  dust  and  fumes 
over  dipping  and  wiping,  and  over  skimmings 
until  their  removal  in  a  covered  receptacle. 

(c)  Removal  of  dust  and  refuse  from  workrooms. 

(d)  Protective  clothing  and  cloakroom  for  women. 

(e)  Meal-room  and  washing  accommodation. 

(/)  Periodic  medical  examination  with  power  of 
suspension. 


iFirst  certified  Jan. 
1894.  Special 
Rules  superseded 
hy  these  Regu- 
lations, 1909. 


(a)  Dust-extracting  machines  to  be  covered  over  and  cover  | 

connected  with  exhaust  fan  so  as  to  discharge  dust 
into  a  furnace  or  intercepting  chamber. 

(b)  Protective  clothing  and  respirators  to  be  supplied 

for  persons  who  collect  and  remove  the  dust. 

(a)  Scheduled  wool  or  hair  to  be  opened  by  skilled  men 

only,  and  to  be  steeped  in  water  or  alternatively 
opened  over  a  screen  with  an  exhaust  according 
to  the  Schedule. 

(b)  Sorting   boards   must   be   as   prescribed   and   also 

willowing  machines.  [willeying  room. 

(c)  Storage  of  wool  or  hair  prohibited   in  sorting  and 

(d)  Provision  for  collection  and  removal  of  dust  and 

(e)  Floors  to  be  sprinkled  and  swept  daily.  [refuse. 
(/)  Protective    clothing    supplied    and    not    removed 

unless  disinfected  or  boiled. 
(g)  Washing  and  meal -room  accommodation. 
(h)  First-aid  requisites  duty  laid  on  workers  to  report 

any  open  sore  or  cut. 
(i)  Power  of  inspectors  to  take  samples  of  material. 


xa)  Provision  of  efficient  stopping  and  starting  gear 
on  every  woodworking  machine. 

(b)  Special  fencing  of  machinery,  particularly  circular 

saws  and  planing  machines. 

(c)  Spacing  of  machines,  and  maintenance  of  surrounding 

floors  in  good  condition  and  free  from  obstruction. 

(d)  Adequate  lighting,  both  daylight  and  artificial  light. 

(e)  Artificial  warming  of  workrooms  in  cold  weather. 


In  draft  June,  1922. 


(a)  Exclusion  of  young  persons  under  16. 

(b)  Exhaust  ventilation  for  removal  of  dust  draught  to 

be  tested  and  recorded  quarterly. 

(c)  Periodic    medical    examination    with    power    of 

(d)  Protective  clothing  supplied.  [suspension. 

(e)  Cloakroom  and  meal-room,  if  required  in  writing  by 
(/)  Washing  accommodation.  [chief  Inspector. 


APPE] 

TABLE  OF  REPORTED  CASES  OF  INDUSTRIAL  POISON  IN 

(Small  figures  at  right-hand  comer  oj 

1921 

1920 

1919 

!  1]  - 

M. 

F. 

M. 

F. 

M. 

187 

F. 

20 

M. 

11 

124 

r. 

Lead  Poisoning*.. 

21 

362 

222 

213 

Tinning  of  metal. s 

— 

1 

2 

— 

2 

1 

1 

White  lead 

1.31 

— 

» 

— 

10 

— 



China  and  earthenware 

i:-.' 

11 
1(> 

•> 
8" 

13* 

8 

i 

G 

Litho -transfers 

— 

1 

— 

1 

— 

— 

—      

Vitreous  enamelling 

7 

1 

1 

1 

1 

— 

—      — 

Coach  paintingf 

141 

fi 

12 

1 

io3 

1 

— 

Paints  used  in  other  indust 

rics 

12 

— 

3 

7 

2 

12 

3 

Other  industries 

2 

10 

10J 

32* 

— 

24' 

1 

.,' 

4 

Mercury  Poisoning 

— 

— 

4 

1 

5 

2 

1 

Phosphorus  Poisoning  . . 

— 

— 

— 

— 

1 

— 

3 

— 

cc  Poisoning 

i 

— 

3 

— 

4 

31 



Anthrax    .. 

i 

41 

10 

61 

V 

u3 

465 

26! 

Toxic  J  w  sdice 

.. 

.' 

6 

2 

I1 

72 

278 

*  Total  cases  in  factory  and  workshop. 

•f-  All  the  female  eases  in  coach  painting  were  dm 

%  All  due  to  heading  of  yarn. 

§  Of  these  cases  four  were  due  to  heading  of  yari 

||  In  1913  eighteen  cases  among  women  were  due 

1   In  1908 

sever 

i  cas 

es  an 

long 

worn 

sn  w< 

;re  d 

le  tc 

D1X   II 


AND  ANTHRAX  (SECTION  73  OF  THE  FACTORY  ACT,  1901). 
figures  indicate  fatal  cases,  included  in  totals). 


1917 

1916 

1915 

1 

.  e     A  vc  ragt 
I  1912-14     1909-11 

1906-08 

1903-05 

1900 

if. 

F. 

-VI- 

F. 

M. 

F. 

M. 

F.        M. 

F. 

M. 

F. 

M. 

F. 

:,i. 

F. 

1 

" 







272* 

2 

45 

318 

301 

35|] 

25 

553 

--,3- 
•312 

033 

*2S 

524 

952 

„    2. 

501 

1001 

5 

174 

— 

2 

- 

1 

2 

1 

1      13 

4 

10 

8 

9 

4 

3 

15 

2 

[161 

2 

36 

4 

241 

3      34 1 

0 

s;.:; 

3 

1001 

5     325 

53" 

85 

2 

7 

81 

135 

13 

10 

S3 

23     ;     38 

383 

526 

0 

57" 

393 

56 

1 
95 

4 

105 

1 

'  — 

1 

1 

5 

1 

2 

7        3 

1 

_ 

5 

— 

0 

— 

8 

— 

12 

1 

5 

1 

1 

2 

8        3 

9 

20" 

1 

33 

— 

39S 

— 

704 

1 

— 

4 

74 

1 

60d 



TO5 



171 

3 

18 

2 

2 
16 

— 

i22 

4 

.:.,' 

4 

2 

5 

4 

- 

574 

5u" 

11 

471 

7 

14|| 

8 

■ 

ion 

12 

18 

6 

11  , 

11 

7 

6 

1 

13 

1 

10 

— 

5 

2 

0 



7 

2 

3 

— 

2 

— 

31 

-  j 

— 

1 

— 

— 

1 

I1 

1 

2 

5 

30 

— 

— 

— 

3 

— 

4 

— 

5 

2 

11] 

1 

4 



153 

7 

71U 

223 

77" 

21 
28 

457 

5 

7 

4S9 

■1 

M 

13* 

43U 

0 
9" 

285 

92 

2 

45 

42 
145 

^23 

84 

34 
122 

1 

~ 

-! 

to  painting  perambulators,  except  the  one  in  191 1. 

and  twelve  to  bullet  and  shrapnel  making. 
to  heading  of  yarn. 
heading  of  yarn. 

307 


.1 


INDEX 


Aberdaee,  Lord,  Home  Secre- 
tary, 6 

Abraham,  Miss  May.  Inspector  of 
Factories,    vii,    9,    40,    201 
secretary  to   Lady   Dilke,   9 
retirement,  13;  marriage,  13 
member    of    the    Dangerous 
Trades  Committee,   100.     See 
Tennant 

Accidents  in  factories,  13U,  140; 
in  laundries,  141-146:  treat- 
ment, 147;  number,  196 

Aerated  water,  288 

Aeroplanes,  varnishing  the  wings, 
129 

Akers-Douglas,  Rt.  Hon.  (Lord 
Chilston),  Home  Secretary, 
192 ;  on  Women  Inspectors,  193 

Alverstone,  Lord,  207 

America,  "  motion  study,"  250 

Anderson,  Adelaide  Mary,  In- 
spector of  Factories,  9 

Anthrax,  cases  of,  95,  98,  115, 
126,  306 

Anti-Sweating  Movement,  60 

Antrim,  177 

Ardara,  80 

Arsenic,  95,  98,  288,  306 

Asbestos  industry,  96.  106 

Asquith,  Rt.  Hon.  H.  H.,  on 
Factory  Laws,  10;  on  Women 
Inspectors,  191,  192 

Baden,    Grand    Duchy    of,    silk 

mills,  139 
Bag- woman   or  carrier   system, 

90 
Beacon,  the,  252  note 


Bedford  College  for  Women,  270 
note 

Belfast,  textile  mill,  case  of 
half-timers,  55;  procession  of 
workers,  75;  conference  in, 
109;  Congress  of  the  Royal 
Sanitary  Institute,  162,  268 
note;  Health  Commission,  175 

Belgium,  reformatory  institu- 
tions, 182;  prevention  of  in- 
dustrial fatigue,  255 

Bentinck,  Lord  Henry  Caven- 
dish, on  the  work  of  Women 
Inspectors,  195 

Benzine,  288 

Berlin,  conference  in,  10,  150 

Bichromate  of  potassium,  result 
of,  127,  290 

Birmingham,  prosecutions,  179; 
munition  factories,  231;  Con- 
gress of  the  Roval  Sanitary 
Institute,  274 

Birtwistle,  Mr.,  Inspector  of 
Textile  Particulars,  85 

Black  Country  factories,  43 

Blackburn,  155 

Board  of  Trade  Wage  Census,  63 

Bonus  system,  76 

Bournville.  conference  at,  269 

Branford,  Victor,  Inter  pre!  at  ions 
and  Forecasts,  149 

Brass,  288 

Bricks,  glazing  of,  120 

Brickworks,  134 

Briquettes,  288 

Bristol,  89;  Women  Workers, 
meeting,  9 

Bronzing,  dust  from,  111,  288 


308 


INDEX 


309 


Brooke-Gwynne,  Maura,  xi 
Buffing  of  plated  articles,  109 
Burnley,  135.  155 
Burns,  Bt.   Hon.   John,  on  the 
work  of  Women  Inspectors,  192 

Cadbury,  Mr.,  conference  at 
BournvilJe.  269 

Campbell,  Dr.  Janet,  on  Health 
of  Women  in  Industry,  123 
note;  War  Cabinet  Com- 
mittee on  Women  in  Indus- 
try, 197 

Canteens,  result  of,  257 

Carbonic  oxide  poisoning,  127 

Carotting,  process  of,  126 

Celluloid,  290 

Cement  ,  works,  in  Scotland, 
employment  of  women.  234 

Chalmers,  >ir  Mackenzie,  11 

Chapman.  S.  J.,  Labour  and 
Capital  after  the  War,  64  note, 
221  note,  232  note 

Chemical  works,  employment  of 
women,  233 

Chemicals,  290 

Children,  employment  in  fac- 
tories, 131,  163-179;  result  of 
lifting  heavy  weights,  131- 
135,  171;  examinations.  166, 
168-174;half-time  system,  165, 
177;  cases  of  rejection,  167; 
in  Ireland,  174-177;  number 
of,  177,  180 

China  scourers,  96;  mortality, 
103-105 

Christian  Social  Union  Research 
Committee,  262 

Chromate,  lead,  120,  121,  290 

Chrome  holes,  127 

Cleanliness  of  workshops,  45,  47, 
48,  258 

Clothing  factories,  wages,  67; 
accidents,  146;  employment  of 
mothers.  154;  number  em- 
ployed, 218,  225  note 

Cohen,  Miss  H.  F.,  158 

Colchester,  clothing  factories,  89; 
rate  of  wages,  67 

Collett,  Miss  Clara,  Assistant 
Commissioner  on  Labour,  9 


Collings,  Bt.  Hon.  Jesse,  criti- 
cism on  the  work  of  Women 
Inspectors.  193 

Collis,  Dr.  E.  L.,  96, 110;  Director 
of  the  Welfare  Department.  274 

Commonwealth,  the,  18 

Consumption,  compulsory  noti- 
fication, 110 

Cooke-Taylor,  Whateley,  164; 
Th  e  Modern  Factory  System,  57 

Cornwall,  78,  83 

Cotton  Cloth  Factories  Act  of 
1889,  99 

Cotton  mills,  driving  system,  8; 
fines,  73 

Coventry,  factories  in,  179,  268, 

Dangerous    Trades    Committee 

100,  111,  137 
Deane,  Miss  Lucy,  Inspector  of 

Factories,  9,  80,  81,  87,   103, 

116,  117,  181,  185 
Deane    v.    Hulbert   Beach,    203; 

v.  Wilson,  76,  77 
Dermatitis   or   inflammation   of 

the  skin,  case  of,  127,  128 
Dickie,  Mrs.,  Inspector,  176 
Digby,  Sir  Kenelm,  11 
Dilke,  Bt.  Hon.  Sir  Charles,  on 

the  work  of  Women  Inspectors, 

192,  194 
Dilke.  Lady,  9,  11 
Dilution  Officers  of  Munitions,  237 
Donegal,     experiences     of     In- 
spectors in.  213 
Donegal  Vindicator,  81  note 
Dope  poisoning,  129 
Down,  177 
Drage,  Mr.  Geoffrey,  Secretary  of 

the  Labour  Commission,  9 
Drinking  water,  supply  of,  46 
Driving  system,  in  cotton  mills,  8 
Drury,  Mrs.,  Inspector,  xi,  67; 

sketch  of  a  day's  work,  219- 

221.     See  Whitworth 
Duckering,     G.     Elmhirst,     In- 
spector of  Factories,  101 
Dundee,  155,  178 
Dungloe,  81 
Dust,      dangers      of,      102-112, 

288 


310 


INDEX 


Edward  IV.,  King,  statute  of,  5S   | 

note 
Eight  Hours  Bill,  8 
Electric    accumulator   industry, 

115,  292 
Electro-plate  works,  Sheffield,  109 
Elementary  Education  Act,  166 

Emergency  Orders,  230,  239,  241 
Employment  of  Children,  Royal 

Commission     of     1841,     103; 

Act,  135,  136;  Committee  on, 

in  1901,  168 
"  Employment  of  Mothers,     lob 
telling  of  metals,  100, 101,292 
Escioet,     Miss,      Inspector      of 

Factories,  xi,  92,  264 

Fabian  Society,  8 

Factories,     Women    Inspectors, 
vii,  ix,  1,  5,  7,  9;  number  of, 
15;  their  work,    19;   evils    of 
the     system,      24-27;     hours 
of     work,     27-34,    39,    239- 
244;  evils  of  overtime,  35-39; 
defective     sanitation,     39-44 ; 
supply  of  drinking  water,  46: 
Lting,     46-50;     system     of 
fines,  68-72 ;  practice  of  raffling, 
72;   bonus   system,   76;   dan- 
gerous processes,   94;   special 
rules,  95-98,  113;  mechanic?' 
ventilation,  100;  records,  112; 
Women    Medical    Inspectors, 
122;  accidents  in,  139;  regis- 
ter  of,    140;    employment   of 
mothers,  150-163;  number  of, 
161,   180,  225   note;  employ- 
ment   of    children,     163-179; 
number    of,     177;     half-time 
system,  165,  177:  daily  visits 
of   inspection,   216;   substitu- 
tion of  women,  233-239,  245; 
welfare    movement,    253'272' 
women  superintendents,  260, 
268;  provision  for  meals,  261- 
264,    271;    neglect    of    seats, 
265-267;   weight  lifting,  267; 
first-aid  and  ambulance  work, 
267;  hygienic  safeguards,  272; 
surveys,  273;  orders  for  wel- 


fare condition,  276-278;  com- 
mittees, 278-281,  284;  series 
of  welfare  pamphlets,  2S1 ;  im- 
proved conditions,  282-285 
Factories  and  Miscellaneous  Pro- 
visions Act  of  1916,  46 
Factory  Act  of  1802,  150;  of 
1878,  6,  7,  28  note,  49  note, 
202;  of  1891,  10,  13,  97,  150, 
166  note;  of  1895,  13,  31,  32, 
49  85, 191 ;  of  1901, 29, 30  note, 
31,  33,  45,  49,  92,  94,  97,  127 
note,  131,  166  note,  171,  182. 
202,  230  7^e/ of  1907,  33,  186 

Factory  system,  4;  a  workers' 
welfare  committee  in  a 
national  factory,  278 

Faithful,  Miss  Emily,  letter  to 
The  Times,  6 

Fencing  of  machinery,  the  term, 
12 ;  accidents  from,  139,  144 

Fines,  system  of,  68-72 

Fish- curing  industry,  31,  128, 
276  note  ;  number  employed, 
■221  note 

Flax  preparation  and  carding, 
mortality,  102,  294 

Flax  scutch  mills,  109 

Ford,  Miss  I.  0.,  8 

Foxioi'd  Convent,  May 

France,  reformatory  institutions, 
182,  183;  industrial  legislation, 
199  note,  255 

Fruit  industry,  32;  number 
employed,  225  note 

Fuller*,  Ltd.  v.  Squire,  204 

Fustian  clothing  factories,  89 

Gas  stoves,  unhooded,  49 
Gasworks,   employment   of   wo- 
men, 235 
George  I.,  King,  statute  of,   5b 

Germany,  reformatory  institu- 
tions, 182,  183;  industrial 
legislation,  199  note,  255 

Gladstone,  Viscount,  Depart- 
mental Committee,  105,  118 
,•  on  the  increase  of  Women 
Inspectors,  194 

Glasgow  Trade  Union  Congress,  7 


INDEX 


311 


Glass  factories  of  Sunderland.  135 

Goadby,  Dr.  Kenneth  W.,  Lead 
Poisoning  and  Lead  Absorp- 
tion, 99,  112  note,  114 

Goods,  payment  in,  evils  of,  59, 
62,  78,  80-85 

Grimsby,  31 

Haldane,    Viscount,    address   to 

Factory  Inspectors,  207 
Half-time  system,  1G5,  177 
Hanley.  155 
Hatch.  Sir  Ernest,  Departmental 

Committee,  106,  118 
Haynes,  Miss  Dorothy,  200  note 
Heading  yarn  dyed  in  lead  chro- 

mate.  cases  of  poisoning,  120, 

121,  304 
Health  Commission,  in  Belfast, 

Report  of  the,  175 
Health  Insurance,  National,  121, 

158,  162 
Health,  Ministry  of,  152 
Health    of    Munition    Workers 

Committee,  237,  241,  242,  244, 

247,  256  note,  257  note 
Hewitt,  Dr.  E.  M.,  96 
Hill,  Dr.  Leonard,  99 
Hills,  Mr..  195 
Holland,    Canon   Scott,   on   the 

work  of  Factory  Inspectors,  18 
Home   Office   Memorandum    on 

Substitution  of  Women,   229 

note,  236 
Homework,    Select     Committee 

on,  60 
Hood,     Thomas,     Song    of    the 

Shirt,  8 
Hosiery  factories,  teazle  brush- 
ing, 108 
Hours  of  work,  27-34,  39,  239- 

244;  reduction,  52 
Hygiene  and  Industrial  Employ- 
ment, address  on,  162 

Illumination  in  Factories,  46 
India-rubber  works,  125,  298 
Industrial      Fatigue      Research 

Board.  248 
Industrial       Law       Indemnity   I 

Fund,  22 


Industries,  dangerous  and  un- 
healthy, 94,  287;  preventive 
measures.  289-305 

Infant  mortality,  high  rate  of, 
154 

Institutions,  reformatory  or 
charitable,  method  of  adminis- 
tration, 151,  182-189 

Ireland,  letters  of  thanks  to 
Inspectors,  55:  wages  of  dress- 
makers, 80;  payment  in  goods, 
80-83;  prosecutions.  82;  em- 
ployment of  children,  174- 
177;  convent  industries,  181; 
institutional  laundries,  184 

Italy,  prevention  of  industrial 
fatigue,  255 

Jotevko,  Dr.  Josef  a,  Science  of 
Labour,  19S,  246 

Kent,  Prof.  Stanley,  255  note 
Kid-glove  makers,  payment  of, 

84 
Kinloch-Cooke,      Sir      Clement, 
Women  and  Industrial  Changes, 
225  note 
Kippering  industry  case,  213 
Kropotkin,  Prince,  Fields,  Fac- 
tories and  Workshops,  280 

Labels,  injurious  practice  of 
licking.  137-139 

Labour  and  Capital  after  the 
War.  245  note 

Labour  Convention  of  1919,  10 

Labour,  International  Confer- 
ence, at  Berlin,  10 

Labour,  Ministry  of,  237 

Labour,  Royal  Commission  on, 
3,  9,  42 

Lace-tinting  industry,  110 

Lakeman,  Mr.,  on  the  evils  of 
working  overtime,  35 

Lancashire.  Limited  Liability 
Company,  case  against,  42; 
employment  of  mothers.  159 

Laundries,  hours  of  work,  32- 
34;  seaside,  38;  carbonic  oxide 
poisoning,  127;  accidents  in, 
141-146;      remedies      against, 


312 


INDEX 


142;  number,  143;  prosecu- 
tions, 145;  employment  of 
mothers,  151-154;  institu- 
tional, 151,  184-188;  women 
employed,  ISO.  218,  225  note 

Lead  chromate,  120,  121,  290 

Lead  poisoning,  96,  100,  298, 
304,  306 

Leeds,  factories,  89;  practice  of 
raffling  goods,  72 

Legge,  Dr.  T.  M.,  Senior  Medical 
Inspector,  xi,  96,  97,  107,  12!) ; 
Occupational  Diseases,  99  note  ; 
Lead  Poisoning  and  Lead  Ab- 
sorption, 99  note,  112  note,  114 

Lighting  of  factories  and  work- 
shops, 46-50;  Committee  on,  47 

Linen-weaving  factory,  system 
of  fines,  71 

London,  factories,  89;  School  of 
Economics,  270  note 

Longton,  104,  155 

Lovibond,  Miss,  112,  135.  See 
Moorcroft 

Lowestoft,  fishing  industry,  31, 
276  note 

Lucifer  match  factory,  case  of,  79 

Lushington,  Sir  Godfrey,  11 

Lye,  bucket  industry,  154 

Lyttelton,  Rt.  Hon.  Alfred,  195 

Mac  Arthur,  Miss  Mary,  37 
Macdonald,  Mr.  Ramsay,  195 
Machinery,  fencing  of,  12;  acci- 
dents from,  139 
Manchester,  practice  of  rafiling 
goods,  72; "'  making-up"  ware- 
houses, 136 
Manufacturers,    Association    of, 

71,  75 
Martindalc,   Miss   Hilda,   x,   23, 
55,  56,  71,  80,  83,  109,   116, 
119,  134,  156,   174,  176,  179, 
185;    Hyjiene    and   Industrial 
Employment,  162,  268  note 
Mary,  H.M.  Queen,  Fund,  188 
Match-making  industry,  124 
Matthews,     Rt.     Hon.     Henry, 

Home  Secretary,  7 
McKenna,  Rt.  Hon.  R.,  on  the 
work  of  Women  Inspectors,  193 


Meals,  provision  for,  in  factories, 

261-2G4.  271 
Medical  Inspectors,  20,  95 
Men,      number      employed      in 

factories,    15,    16;   Inspectors, 

work  of  the,  20,  196;  number, 

15 
Mercerised  cotton  yarn  dust,  108 
Mercurial    poisoning,    cases    of, 

124-126,  306 
Meredith,  George,  224 
Messrooms,  258,  262 
Metals,  enamelling  and  tinning 

of,  100,  101  note,  292,  304 
Mill  gearing,  12  note 
Mill  girls,  deputation  of,  222 
Mines  Acts,  97 

Moorcroft,  Mrs.,  112.     See  Lovi- 
bond 
Morrell,  Mr.,  195 
Mothers,   employment   of,    150- 

163;     maternity    fund,     157; 

cases  of,  15S-162;  number.  161 
Mulhouse,  maternity  fund,  157 
Munition   workers,    number   of, 

228,  239;  long  hours,  239-244 

National     Liberal     Federation, 

meeting,  10 
National  Service,  Ministry  of,  237 
Necrosis,  cases  of,  125 
Needle-puncturing  accidents,  146 
Nicotine  poisoning,  127 
Niven.  Dr.,  on  the  cleanliness  of 

workshops,  48 

Oastler.  Richard,  3 

Oram,  Mr.  R.  E.  Sprague,  H.M. 
Chief  Inspector,  13,  19;  retire- 
ment, 13,  19 

Osborn,  Mr.  E.  H.,  H.M.  Super- 
intending Inspector  of  Fac- 
tories, 99,  102 

Outwork,  evil  of,  30 

Overtime,  working,  2S;  evils  of, 
35-39 

Owen,  Robert,  3,  253 

Papworth,  Miss  Wyatt,  secretary 
of  the  Women's  Industrial 
Council,  36 


INDEX 


313 


Paterson,  Mrs.  Emma  Ann, 
founds  the  Women's  Protec- 
tive League,  6 

Paterson,  Miss  Mary,  Inspector 
of  Factories,  vii,  xi,  9,  56,  72, 
103,  115,  156,  160,  161,  166, 
167,  171,  173,  185,  201;  on 
insanitary  conditions,  41 ;  case 
of  overcrowding.  44 

Paterson,  Mr.  Thomas,  6 

Peace  Treaty  of  1919,  10 

Peel,  Sir  R.,  3 

Pendock,  Mr.  C.  R.,  Inspector  of 
Factories,  99,  101;  Observa- 
tions on  Ventilation  of  Potteries 
and  Removal  of  Dust,  102  note 

Pen-making  trade,  88,  92;  sys- 
tem of  "  cards,"  93 

Peripatetic  Inspectors,  210 

Perry,  Miss,  145 

Phosphorus   necrosis,    124,   306 

Physical  Deterioration,  Com- 
mittee on,  155 

Piecework,  payment  of,  S5-93 

Plumbism,  cases  of,  116,  290 

Poisoning,  cases  of,  98,  306 

Police  Act,  the  little,  274-278 

Police,  Factories,  etc.,  Act,  254 
note 

Potteries,  records,  112;  Fund, 
118 

Pottery  Code  of  Regulations,  117 

Poivtr  Laundry,  The,  33 

Pratt,  Mr.  Hodgson,  6 

Presbyterian  Church,  General 
Assembly  of  the,  on  child 
labour,  177 

Preston,  155 

Public  Health  Acts,  45,  207 

Purdon,  Dr.,  102 

Rabbit  skins,  dust  from,  126, 
170  note 

Raffling,  practice  of,  72 

Reconstruction,  Ministry  of,  237 

Redgrave  v.  Kelly,  case  of,  75 

Reformatory  institutions,  ad- 
ministration, 151,  182-189 

Religious  institutions,  workers, 
181 

Rent,  deductions  for,  79 


!  Ridley,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Matthew 
White,  Home  Secretary,  10; 
on  Women  Factory  Inspectors , 
191 

Rowntree,  Mr.  Seebohm,  Direc- 
tor of  the  Welfare  Department, 
232,  273 

Royal  Sanitary  Institute,  Con- 
gress at  Belfast,  162 

Rubber  articles,  124,  125 

Rubber  tvre  factorv,  system  of 
fines,  69 

Russell,  Lord,  of  Killowen,  207 

Sadler,  Michael,  3 

Sadler,  Miss,  Inspector  of  Fac- 
tories, 114  note,  122 

Safety-pin  factory,  system  of 
deductions.  6iJ 

Sanitation,  defective,  in  fac- 
tories and  workshops,  39-44 

Schofield  v.  Schv/nk,  146 

School  Child  Leaflet,  274 

Scientific  instrument  making, 
236 

Scotland,  cement  works,  em- 
ployment of  women,  234 

Seats,  lack  of,  in  factories,  265- 
267 

Service  Magazine,  280 

Shaftesbury,  Earl  of.  3,  7,  164 

Sheffield,  electro-plate  works, 
109;  conference  in,  259; 
dinner  clubs,  263 

Shell  factory,  251 

Shetland,  78 

Shift  systems,  242 

Silk  waste  carding  and  spinning, 
107 

Simon,  Sir  John,  104 

Slocock,  Miss,  Inspector  of  Fac- 
tories, 85,  178 

Smith,  Adam,  62 

Smith,  Sydney,  99 

Somerset,  78,  83 

Squire,  Miss  R.  E.,  Inspector  of 
Factories,  x.  10,  60,  72,  73,  81, 
82,  87,  88,  107,  108,  113,  120, 
132,  136,  148,  152,  155,  156, 
169,  178,  181,  199  note,  203, 
271 ;  member  of  a  Committee 


314 


INDEX 


on  Lighting  in  Factories,  47; 
cases,  53,  54;  on  the  wages  of 
girls,  65;  in  charge  of  the 
Women's  Welfare  Depart- 
ment, 274 

Squire  v.  B  y^r  cf-  Co.,  205;  v. 
Midland  Lace  Company,  85; 
v.  Sweeney,  83,  85 

Staffordshire  Potteries,  43.  116, 
131,  133,  136,  155 

Star,  the,  37 

Steel  works  in  Yorkshire,  em- 
ployment of  women,  234 

Stoke-on-Trent,  104 

Stourbridge,  brick-making.  154 

Stuart,  Prof.  William,  Economic 
Annals  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury, 164  note;  Substitution  of 
Women  in  Industry,  229  note 

Substitutes,  women  as.  See 
Women  Workers 

Sunderland,  glass  factories,  135 

Sweated  Industries,  Exhibition 
of  1906,  60 

Sweating  system,  8 

Tailoring  trade,  89 

Tawney,  Mr.  R.  H.,  Minimum 
Rates  in  the  Tailoring  Trade,  67 

Ta}dor,  Mr.  Stevenson,  Inspector 
of  Factories,  99 

Taylor,  Mr.  Theodore,  tribute  to 
the  work  of  Women  Inspectors, 
192 

Teazle  -  brushing  machines, 
guards  for,  108,  148 

Temperature  of  workrooms,  44, 
50 

Tennant.  Mrs.  H.  J..  9,  192,  207; 
Chairman  of  the  Industrial 
Law  Indemnity  Fund,  22.  See 
Abraham 

Textile  factories,  number  em- 
ployed, 218,  225  note 

Theatrical  costume  industry,  37; 
cases  of  overtime,  3S 

Time-cribbing,  suppression  of,  38 

Tinning  of  metals,  100,  101,  304 

Tinplate  works,  loads,  132,  133 

Tobacco  works,  cases  of  poison- 
ing. 127 


Toxic  jaundice,  cases  of,  129, 
306 

Tracey,  Miss  A.,  Inspector  of 
Factories,  9,  23.  121.  143,  148, 
185 

Tracey  v.  Pretty,  206 

Trade  Boards  Act  of  1909.  60 

Trade  Union  Congress,   Bristol, 
7;  Glasgow,  7;  organisation  for 
women,  3 
I   Troup,  Sir  Edward,  11 

Truck,  meaning  of  the  word,  58 ; 
committee  on.  60,  69,  76 

Truck  Acts,  27,  78;  of  1831,  58, 
73,  75,  85;  of  1887,  58,  75,  S5; 
of  1896,  58,  70,  73,  75 

Tuckwell,  Miss  Gertrude.  Hon. 
Sec.  of  the  Women's  Trade 
Union  League,  56;  The  Jeo- 
pardy of  a  Department,  57  note 

Unemployment,  281 
Urwick,  Prof.,  269 

Vandevelde,    Mr.,    the   Belgian, 

286 
Varley,  Miss  Julia,  article  in  the 

Yorkshire  Factory   Times,   25 

note 
Ventilation  of  workrooms,  40,  44, 

47,  100 
Vines,    Miss,    Inspector  of 

tones.     116,     134    note,    145, 

178,  179 

Wage  Census  of  18S6  and  1906, 
63 

Wages  of  women,  59,  63-6S; 
payment  in  goods,  59,  62.  78, 
30-85;  deductions,  64-66,  68- 
72;  system  of  fines,  6S-72 

War,  the  Great,  14,  16,  27,  85, 
113,  128,  178,  188,  253; 
women's  work  in  the,  224, 
226-236;  tributes  to,  231 

War.  munitions  of,  production, 
228 

War  Museum,  National,  227,  232 

Weaving,  art  of,  251 

Weights,  heavy,  lifting,  130-136, 
267,  302 


INDEX 


315 


Welfare  Department,  272 ;  move- 
ment in  factories,  253-272; 
trained  women  superinten- 
dents. 260,  26S 

Werner,  Mr.  E.  A.  R.,  Inspector 
of  Factories,  100 

Whitaker,  Dr.,  102 

White  lead  industry,  cases  of 
poisoning,  114-117,  120-122, 
149,  298,  304;  regulations, 
118:  preventive  measures,  120 

Whitelegge,  Sir  Arthur,  M.D., 
Chief  Inspector  of  Factories, 
13,  19,  97 

Whitley  Report.  123 

Whitlock.  Miss,  M.B.,  106,  109, 
110,  138,  147,  262,  268; reports 
on  lead  cases,  112,  119,  121; 
transferred  to  the  Industrial 
Schools  Department,  113 

Whitworth,  Miss,  67,  261.  See 
Drury 

Williams,  Mr.,  Superintending 
Inspector,  99 

Wilson,  Mr.  D.  R.,  Illumination 
in  Factories,  46 

Women  Assistant  Commissioners 
on  Labour,  9 

Women  Dilution  Officers,  em- 
ployment of,  198 

Women  Inspectors,  vii,  ix,  1,  5; 
appointment,     7,     9;     official 
status,    11;   work,    11-14,    78, 
124,  191,  198-223,  270;  num- 
ber,  14,   192,  218,  237;  testi- 
mony to,  18 ;  detection  of  cases 
of  overtime,   35-39;  value  of 
their  visits,  52;  relations  with 
the  workers,  53-55;  letters  of 
thanks,   55;  evidence  on  the 
result  of  low  wages,  59,   63 
cases,  80-82,  202,  209;  reports 
on  payment  of  piecework,  87 
inquiries  into  dangerous  pro 
cesses,  95;  taking  of  records 
112;   tributes   to   their  work 
191-195,  222;  study  of  foreign 
industrial      legislation,      199 
higher  education,  201;  prose 
cutions,       202-210;       address 
from     Lord     Haldane,     207 


reading  for  the  Bar,  209 ;  peri- 
patetic, 210;  experiences  in 
the  courts,  214;  daily  visits  of 
inspection,  216;  inspection  of 
munitions  factories,  235,  239; 
reports  on  the  result  of  long 
hours  of  work,  240-244 
Women  Medical  Inspectors,  122 
Women  superintendents  in  fac- 
tories, 260,  268 
Women  Welfare  Officers,  237 
Women  Workers,  National 
Council  of,  meeting  at  Bristol, 
9;  number  employed  in  fac- 
tories, 15,  16,  225  note;  charac- 
teristics. 22;  courage,  22-24; 
evils  of  the  system,  24-27; 
hours  of  work,  27-34,  39; 
relations  with  the  Inspectors, 
53;  complaints  against  mana- 
gers, 53-55;  wages,  59,  63-68; 
dangerous  processes,  94;  rules 
for  safeguarding,  95-98,  113; 
injuries  from  lead  processes  on 
maternity,  116,  149;  result  of 
lifting  heavy  weights,  132-136, 
267;  number  employed  in 
laundries,  180;  work  in  the 
War,  224,  226-236;  substi- 
tutes, 227,  233-239,  245; 
tributes  to,  231 ;  in  engineering, 
chemical  and  gasworks,  231, 
233-235;  result  of  their  war- 
time experiences,  246-249 
Women  and  Young  Persons  Act , 

1920,  115 
Women's     Employment     Com- 
mittee, Report,  4,  18,  150,  158, 
237 
Women's  Industrial  Council,  36 
Women's  Industrial  News,    198, 

200 
Women's  Institute,  founded,  226 
Women's  Liberal  Association,  8 
Women's  Protective  and  Provi- 
dent League,  founded,  6 
Women's  Trade  Union  League, 

6,  56 
Women's     Union    Journal,    ex- 
tract from,  7 
Women  s  War  Work,  232  note 


316 


INDEX 


Worishoncr,  Dr.,  183 

Work,  function  of,  250 

Workers'  Trustees  Council,  279 

Workers'  Welfare  Committee, 
278 

Working  men  appointed  In- 
spectors, 7,  8 

Workshops,  number  of,  15; 
defective  sanitation,  39-44 ; 
ventilation,  40,  44,  47;  lack 
of  heating,  40;  overcrowding, 
44;  temperature,  44,  50,   99; 


drainage,  45;  cleanliness,  45, 
47;  supply  of  drinking  water, 
46;  lighting,  46-50 

Yarmouth,  fish- curing  industry, 

32,  276 
Yarn,    heading,    dyed    in    lead 

chromate,  120,  121,  304 
Yeovil,  84 

Yorkshire  factories,  43,  234 
Yorkshire     Factory     Times,    25 

note 


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